The Light In The Abyss
by VampireHunterDragoon
Summary: The war between Batman and Kira begins.
1. Master Of Puppets

**Author's Note: I own neither Death Note, Batman, DC Comics, or Marvel Comics. Death Note is the property of Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata, and Viz Media. Batman is the property of Bob Kane and DC Comics, though Bill Finger co-created the Dark Knight. **

**If there's anything I can do to improve this story, please let me know and I'll do what I can. Thanks!**

**BATMAN**

**DEATH NOTE**

**THE LIGHT IN THE ABYSS**

**CHAPTER I:**

**MASTER OF PUPPETS**

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

-Genesis 1:3

We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.

-John Calvin

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.  
>-Friedrich Nietzsche<p>

"Therefore, you, Light Yagami, are, and always have been, Kira!" Near exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at his foe.

For most of the people in the Yellow Box warehouse, the current scene was equal to that of saving the world before it was utterly destroyed. Strange then how the world went on as it normally did, unfazed by their drama and their suspense. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, casting tranquil waves of dark peach across and over the building. The cicadas creaked, flying hither and thither, from one leaf to another as they always did. A few seagulls flew overhead, one squawking commands to his flock. Light shot through the confines of the windows of the warehouse reflected onto the dust floating in the air. Earth did not stir.

On the human dimension, the tension had erupted into revelatory disillusionment. In that dilapidated warehouse, the worst mass murderer in modern history had been caught. The truth had been revealed: the mask was ripped off, and the curtain was torn off the hinges. A team of Japanese detectives dressed in formal ties and suits stared at their ex- comrade and traitor with various reactions. Ide and his radish head stared gravely disappointed at his former ally; there was anger in that stare, but prior suspicions had dulled it. He was almost ashamed of himself for being glad that Soichiro Yagami wasn't alive to witness this disgrace. Then he thought of how much Soichiro had sacrificed for his son, and Ide found himself praying to a silent and uninvolved god that he had never truly believed in. If Soichiro could be spared the knowledge of his son's treachery, Ide would pray to whatever and whoever would listen.

Matsuda, on the other hand, gaped stiffly in irate bewilderment, as if he was the punchline of some cruel and sadistic joke. With what scarce, clear logic he had left not completely overrun by his fury and shock, he knew that he would probably not be able to control himself for much longer. His best friend , his goddamn brother in arms had been making a fool of him this entire time, laughing at him behind his back. And Matsuda had been stupid enough to fall for it the entire time. He wasn't sure who he hated more right now: Light for orchestrating this twisted farce, or himself for once believing every word of it.

Mogi, the hulk of the group, stood squat and thick, tall as a mountain, bulky of a mountain. The giant was assured of his power and brute strength, and this logic prevented him from breaking his former leader's neck. He was nonetheless assured by his mastery of karate, judo, and amateur wrestling that he could do so. Growing up, Mogi had become the target of an insult that implied (if not outright stated) that the Japanese were both small upstairs as well as downstairs. Years of work later, the last guy who had mocked him for his accent ended up having to be spoon fed corn mash for two weeks.

Aizawa, the goateed messenger of the tragic truth, stared at Light with a mixture of disgust, disbelief, and hostility: the pain was less severe compared to the others because he had been the first to suspect that the enemy was within his team. Still, in that his anger had until then been repressed into controlled, disciplined rationality, it now looked as if it would take less than normal time to infuriate him beyond reason and sensibility. Aizawa had been in Rwanda before, working as a United Nations peace-keeper: he had known bitter rage then, rage at seeing the most terrible things in the world happen right before your eyes mixed with the knowledge that you can't do a thing about it. He could do something about this though, and he definitely would do something about this. Even if this included death.

Another group stared at a man they couldn't help but regard as the Devil, and while they were all from different lands, their sense of justice and proficient indignation united them. Halle Lidner, an attractive blond Caucasian woman with amber eyes, stood like something both beautiful and grim, her gaze burning like a black sun. She was young, but she was wise enough to be aware of her own impressionability: she knew that Kira, her first big case, would most likely darken the structure of her future.

Stephen Gevanni, a slightly older Italian with light skin and dark hair, stood rigid, ready to waste the group's depraved enemy. Gevanni had worked an international soldier of SHIELD during the Third Balkan War back in the nineties, and not even the efforts of gods fashioned in the form of men could completely repel the senseless barbarism that Gevanni was unfortunate enough to witness. He knew what people could do, and he knew what people were capable of. This kind of situation did not shock him in the least.

The second in command of the SPK, Anthony Rester, was also the oldest member of his group. He deliberately stood only a few feet from his team leader, intending to protect him at all costs; Rester knew that his foes were brilliant and that they would know that if they attacked the head, the body would probably fall. Thankfully, (_or so I hope_, he thought uncertainly) Rester had survived more than thirty years of leaping into fire headfirst and of putting his neck on the line, and he had learned how to better his odds during such times of danger. His gray blue eyes bore hard into those of his targets, not out of irate malice, but out of gritty experience. He had known evil during his life: he had known it as a boy, studying the sadists that tormented the student body (although they did not torment him, , at least not after he dislocated Ben Hammet's shoulder); he had known it during the Salvadorian Civil War, he, a young, naïve bodyguard, his mind reeling with the knowledge that the heroes had been the villains the entire time, that the defenders of democracy and the foes of communism would willingly slaughter hundreds over their own; and he had known it while he investigated corporate crime on Wall Street and abroad, coming to the horrific conclusion that the criminals didn't regret a thing. Somewhere in his fifties, Rester's hair was grayer than it had to be (he never did take it easier, like he had repeatedly promised his ex-wife), and his stomach carried a few pounds he didn't need (a consequence stemming from frequent dinners of beer and pizza on assignments). Still, he was undoubtedly the most experienced and skilled detective of his team, and even if his boss never mentioned it aloud, Rester knew that he was proficiently appreciated.

L's last, direct prodigy, Near, sat on his hands and knees, as was his custom. Though still only a child, his wisdom and intellect superseded most people's, including all in the room but his nefarious opponent. The bangs from his curly snow white hair did little to hide the grim triumph in his eyes, and his voice, though still small and tender in it's pitch, exhibited an uncanny amount of enmity, victory, and disgust. Though his body was clothed in a loose shirt and baggy pants, everyone could nonetheless tell from the bulging veins in his arms and neck that the usually calm and cool boy was now very tense and quite aggressive. The child genius had spent over two years hunting the world's most notorious mass murderer, two long, painful, infuriating years of dead ends, of close calls, of his enemy destroying everything and anything he could get his hands on, taunting him all the while. The reward for all of his efforts and pains now lied before him, and nothing nor no one could take it away from him. Nothing. No one.

Teru Mikami, Kira's personal executioner, stood only a few feet away from his lord and master. Only minutes before he had stormed into the Yellow Box and, with frantic speed and monstrous energy, wrote everyone's name down into his Death Note. His eyes had been scorching then, burning red with both wrath and glee, as he set about his work; the eyes may have originally belonged to a death god, but as Teru's sordid murder record had shown all, the evil eyes suited him just fine. Kira was his liege, but everyone knew that Teru was the man responsible for making mankind fear Kira even more than they ever had before: wherever he walked, necks were snapped, guns were shot, and lives were snuffed as quickly and easily as if they were candles. Teru's misanthropy was that great, and Near knew that, if left to his own devices, the psychopath would end up choking the life out of the world. No wonder then that the rest of the SPK referred to him derisively as "the Angel of Death".

Not that Teru's delusions of divine glory would help him now. The Death Note that Teru had used only minutes before was a fake, planted by Gevanni in his gym locker after weeks of following Kira's proxy and establishing his modus operandi. Teru had been tricked, and he knew it: he flexed his strong, veined hands angrily and regularly, occasionally glancing over at his master, as if awaiting a command that would get the two of them out of this. No such command was given, and while the atmosphere was tense with resentment and hatred, the KTU and SPK detectives were at least relieved in their belief that no amount of trickery nor cunning could save Mikami or his dark god. However, Teru's appearance precluded them from feeling entirely self-assured or thoroughly confident. Simply put, he was one scary lunatic. He was of average weight (though physical conditioning gave him a good fifteen pounds of extra muscle) and of average height, but his midnight black suit and slacks, his jagged, shoulder length raven hair and his flaring nostrils all gave him the illusion of looming, of being taller and bigger than he actually was. He used these traits to intimidate everyone around him, despite his capture. Mikami was going to spend the rest of his life in prison but considering all the fresh meat he was going to be able to mutilate, flay, and shank, Near wasn't quite sure whether this was a curse or a blessing.

Someone stood in the middle of room, surrounded by enemies, flanked by the men he had once called his allies and even his friends. He looked more than normal; he was beautiful. His hair was a silky brown, his eyes were a variant of somber mocha, and a conservative suit and tie completed his unremarkably handsome appearance. This man was Kira, and while Near considered himself at least a skeptical agnostic, he knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did the Devil exist, but that he walked among man.

The wolf in sheep's clothing, stripped of his mask, stood revealed to all but did not look as if he had been played. Instead, he moved his gaze from one of the room to the other, sober, focused, methodical. No one here except for Teru was very spiritual or superstitious, no one there believed in angels or demons or bogeymen, but there was something there that they could not deny, something that burned in the back of their heads like so many wasps set loose upon the damned. Here in this Yellow Box, in this warehouse, in this room, an Old Testament god stared at his foes, eyes alight with a cold, malevolent fire, the room growing colder and colder with him in it. Hell was a cold and dark place, and the King of Hell was a cold and dark man.

Light Yagami stared at his enemies, looking bored. "You still talking?" he asked Near.

The detectives of the KTU and SPK chose not to reply. Lying, manipulating, and plotting came as naturally to Light Yagami as swimming did to a fish. It now remained to see if he had anything worthwhile to say or if he was just clutching at straws. They would not let the snake twist his way out of justice again.

Light sighed, and looked elsewhere, his gaze indirect and wistful, as if ruminating upon some nostalgic moment, as if he and the warehouse shared some fond memory. "All in all, it was a pretty good ride. Can't say that I regret anything. In less than thirty years, I've done more than Napoleon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan combined. Had a lot of adventures. Made a lot of friends. Killed even more people. In a way, I'm kind of relieved that the music's finally over." Light's faraway look hardened, and he tossed an irritated glance at Near. "But in another way altogether, I'm bloody annoyed as hell that you're all taking up my video game time!"

"Rester, I want this scum arrested," Near said. This was a waste of his time.

"My pleasure," Rester growled. The large man began to advance on Light, arms raised threateningly.

"Not so fast," Light said, holding up a palm. "I've got a proposition in mind for you, for all of you. You send me up the river without speaking my piece, and I take all of Kira's secrets to the grave. You'll never be able to put this all to rest if you begrudge me this one last gesture, Near. I promise you that I can and will continue Kira's reign, even from behind bars, even if I'm six feet under."

Rester stopped, looked back at Near with cautious, uncertain eyes. Doubt tugged at Near's heart, but he did an impressive job at keeping a straight face.

"You're making this worse than it has to be, Yagami," Near said coldly.

"Exactly how many Death Notes are out there, Near?" Light asked, a subtle and cruel smile playing around his lips. "You know of at least two, but can you know with absolute certainty that there are only two in existence? Are you completely sure that I don't have more than two of them? Or how about my proxies? What, do you really think that Teru here is my only disciple? Doesn't it strike you as more likely that I've, oh, gee, I don't know, maybe built an entire underground network of Kira proxies ready to receive my commands, all waiting for the chance to continue my work long after I become worm meat? And exactly how many of them are out there? Ten? Twenty five? A hundred? All I would need to do is find some angry, intelligent kid in Johannesburg or Pyongyang to get the job done. And all these answers, Near, these vital, crucial, and utterly paramount answers, they can be yours. For a price, that is."

Near glowered but thought nonetheless. It wouldn't hurt to hear the sociopath out, would it? No mortal man could connive his way out of this situation, not even a brilliantly dangerous monster like Kira. All the same, Near didn't like the fact that he would be giving time to Yagami to potentially work on an escape stratagem.

_Still, Kira proxies? _Near thought. _The last thing I need is a new Kira to deal with, and knowing Yagami, he probably found someone just as smart as him, if not more so, if that's even possible. And more than one proxy? Combined, they could take over just about whatever they wanted..._

"Near, you can't listen to this bastard!" an almost hysterical voice exclaimed, cutting through Near's reverie. Near glanced towards the direction of the voice. Matsuda had been the shouter of the objection, as judging from his red face and heaving shoulders. The man looked like he was trying to force a supernova to explode in the center of his stomach. "He's evil incarnate! He's worse than Hitler! Don't let him trick you the same way he tricked L!"

"Ah yes, L," Light said, grinning, not with good nature, at Matsuda. "Exactly my next point, Matsuda. Exactly how much time I did spend alone with Ryuzaki, Near? And, really, how much time would two geniuses like us need to see eye to eye, let alone form a fellowship?" Light took a hit and blew out smoke, his eyes giving the impression that he was considering something of great weight. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. Near, you know that Ryuzaki was one of the smartest men around. How long do you think it would take him before he reached the same conclusions about mankind as I did?"

"You shut the hell up!" Matsuda yelled. The man was becoming hysterical, and everyone but Light, Teru, and Near fidgeted uncomfortably. How much longer could they contain the situation before it blew up in their faces?

"Nothing more pathetic than a man who runs away from the truth," Light said, turning his gaze back to

Near. "But you and I, we're men that refuse to hide from the truth, aren't we, Near? I know you, Near. I knew you the moment after I read your files. Because, as clichéd as it may sound, we're not that different. Oh, sure, you may see me as a deranged serial killer with delusions of grandeur, and I may see you as something that should have been choked to death the day it was born, but surely you must agree that we're both men of wisdom. We both know the score, and we've both seen the writing on the wall. Are you really going to stand there and tell me that you never considered the thought that there were two Kira's, and that Ryuzaki was the second one?"

"THAT'S A LIE!' Matsuda screamed. "THAT'S A DAMNED LIE!"

"You're treading on some pretty thin ice, Light!" Aizawa added. He sounded far more controlled than Matsuda but didn't feel it. "Insulting the dead before we send you up the river isn't a good way to prevent us from beating the hell out of you!"

"Well, in that case, I haven't much to lose, do I, Shuichi?" Light retorted. "Yeah, you've got me dead to rights. Yeah, I'll be spending the rest of my life in the pen." He tapped the side of his head. "But so long as I have this little WMD on me, you've really got nothing on me, do you? And don't tell me that you've never suspected Ryuzaki, either. I've seen the way you guys have looked at him before, especially after he tried to suspend my habeas corpus rights the first time he put me behind the eight ball. Didn't those little. You know as well as I do that Ryuzaki would break any rule in the book to insure justice. Are you really going to stand there and tell me that he never once thought that Kira equals justice? That he would go behind your back to aid me?"

He turned to look at Matsuda with a look of mild and pleasant surprise. "And you thought of it too, Touta?" He asked. "Honestly, I'm impressed. And here I thought you were the stupid one."

"S-screw this!" Matsuda snapped, clicking the safety of his pistol. "He's trying to screw us all over again! Well, not this time! If he's evil enough and smart enough to have killed Ryuzaki, then we can't take any chances with him!

"Touta, please settle yourself down," Light said with no intention of settling him down. "This is the same excessively emotional refusals of the truth that has prolonged the suffering of man for eons. Well allow me tell you the truth: I am God, Ryuzaki betrayed you, and if you don't let me have my say, I'll inevitably bring Hell down on your heads. You see, If I'm going down, I'm going to take you all with me. Oh, you might not be the ones riding the lightning in the near future, but c'mon, can you really convince yourselves that I haven't prepared myself for this exact same scenario? I've prepared myself for all of them: for incarceration, for trial, for execution. Really, at this point, you've got nothing to lose."

The smug grin fell somewhere between a unamused frown and a violent snarl. "But refuse me this, and I'll make sure you lose everything", he hissed.

"Talk," Mogi said, staring directly at Light, trying his best not to show just how crap-his-pants terrified he was at the moment.

"M-Mogi! Don't tell me that you buy this crap!" Matsuda practically screeched.

Mogi gave Matsuda a guilty, helpless look. "I'm sorry, Matsuda," he said, "but L's methods weren't always ethical, you know. And couldn't they have acted as Kira together, especially when they were chained together?"

"'Chained together'?" Teru repeated, giving Light an odd look.

"Nothing happened," Light said curtly.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" Matsuda shouted at Mogi. He turned his frantic eyes back to Near. "Near, you need to finish the work that L began and lock up this demented freak!"

"Heretic, I do not care how many firearms are aimed at me," Teru said in a chilled, hushed tone. Matsuda turned to make some sort of smart reply but stopped short after taking a closer look at the visage and demeanor of Kira's Grim Reaper. His eyes, though no longer glowing with a light that could best be described as darkly cosmic, still exhibited something harsh and cruel, the fearlessness of a fanatic. "But if you insult the Kira one more time, I'll insure that you regret it and in spades. Are you really willing to gamble that I won't tear out your larynx before your comrades cut me down?"

Matsuda, who believed the Butthole Surfers when they said that it was better to regret something you did rather than regret something you did not do, promptly shut his mouth. Something told him that he would regret being mutilated more than he would shutting up.

"I think we should hear him out, boss" Gevanni said to Near. "He may be one evil bastard, but he's one brilliant evil bastard. He tells us something good, we may be free of this Kira stuff once and for all. What's he gonna do, walk out of a room filled with pointed magnums? Besides, its not like he knows where we hid the other book."

"Gevanni!" Near snapped.

Gevanni appeared to start shrugging his shoulders, but fell short of it when he realized that it would upset his aim. "Does it really even matter, Boss? We've got this one in the bag. Besides, he may be one sick, evil little turd, but he's a brilliant turd all the same. It can't hurt to hear him out; we might even get to learn something useful from him."

"'The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose'," Rester said, glowering.

"Maybe so, but I think Dante would have made in an exception with Yagami-" Lidner began.

"Shakespeare," Teru interrupted.

"Whatever!" Lidner snapped at Teru. She turned her gaze to Near. "But Gevanni still has a point. We don't know what sentence Yagami is going to get. He could get the chair. He could get life. Or some bureau could try to steal him from us so that they can use him. You know what extent Washington or Beijing would go to to acquire this douche? I say we take our chances, not great chances by the way, and learn what we can."

"You honestly think some central governments would go to the trouble of trying to control this freak?" Ide asked skeptically.

"Why not?" Mogi replied. "Russia and America picked up Nazi scientists after the war. The West tried using the Mujahideen to weaken the U.S.S.R. They even had that 'Dark Avengers' unit in New York, the one filled with Norman Osborn and the rest of those killers!"

"I'm flattered," Light intoned.

'Near, it's your call," Aizawa said, feeling a little guilty for passing the burden onto a kid yet attempting to negate that guilt with the knowledge that Near was an intellectual behemoth. "If you want us to cuff him, we'll do it. If you want us to listen, we'll do that too. But please make your decision fast," he added, tightening his voice so that the sheer, raw panic wouldn't show, thin streams of sweat trickling down his brows, "because I don't know how much longer I can hold this guy. I truly do not."

Near thought as rapidly yet clearly as he could. Really, what could Yagami do with just a few minutes. Talk them to death?

_Knowing him though... _Near considered.

No. No, Light Yagami was a man, an extraordinarily dangerous man and a sordid excuse for a man, but a man nonetheless. There was no such thing as the Devil, and Yagami, as maliciously evil as he was, certainly wasn't the Morning Star.

_How will it look if you refuse him this? _Near thought. _You'll look like a coward, especially after everything L did to stop this monster. How will I lead my team then? For better or for worse, I can't let my mentor down and seem weak. _

"You get five minutes, Yagami," Near said at last. He hardened his eyes: he didn't want Light to think that this was a get out of jail free card. "I suggest that you use them wisely."

Light shrugged, grinning in a sort of G_ee willikers_ _, what on Earth could I possibly do? s_ort of way before he reached inside his suit. Immediately, the rest of the pistols were pulled out and pointed at him, the individual sounds accumulating into one loud click. Light's grin fell, replaced by an annoyed frown. "Wow, it's too much for me to have one last smoke before you send me to Gitmo then?"

There was a shared hesitation, each detective staring uncertainly at one another. Eventually, they all glanced at Near with a collective _What now? l_ook. Near thought for a moment, intentionally leaving his face blank, then nodded grimly. Light, in turn, grinned as if about to feast upon a delicious, bloody steak, and pulled a thick joint from inside his suit. Ordinarily, the sight of Light possessing dope would have thrown his colleagues for a loop, but this was very much not an ordinary situation, and all were in agreement that the fate of man superseded Light smoking some pineapple express. He brought out a lighter from his jeans' pocket, lit it, took a hit, and then exhaled, smoke trailing from his mouth like dragon breath, his face a contented, relaxed departure from the horror they dreaded was fast approaching.

Light placed his thumb under his chin, the musings of an assured philosopher; his countenance suggested that he had a frighteningly large surplus of material he could draw from but that he had the confidence needed to know exactly what to say.

"Consider this," he began. He walked a few steps, the smoke trailing his gait, thin wisps in a still and silent room. Just those few steps gave the impression that he wasn't a frantic criminal desperately attempting to avoid capture, but a man in complete control of his surroundings. "Consider how much I'm worth. Someone like me, anyway. I'm the greatest mind on the planet. My body, my perfect, fit, and adept container of my brain, is the zenith of evolution. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, how else was I able to make it so far? How else did I go from being some bored, bourgeoisie intellectual to this, Kira, master and conqueror of Earth? I've done more in my twenties than anyone has ever done over the period of their whole lives, greater than the Ramses and the Bonaparte's and the Alexanders that came before me."

'So how much would I be worth?" He said. He began to gesticulate as he paced. "Fifteen million? Twenty five? Fifty? Something like that, I'll bet. Just think of all the people that could make use of me: S.H.I.E.L.D., F.B.I., Hydra, maybe even Latveria." Light paused, considered. "Not that I would work with any of those bent pigs or fanatical pissants, you understand. If anything, they would be honored and privileged to work for me. And I, being the just and forgiving deity that I am, would be happy to overlook their past 'moral lapses', so long as they contribute to my rule of course. I'm not running a charity here, you know."

"Eventually, I began to think about just what course of action I was to take if you irritating insects ever caught up with me," Light said. The shadow behind him, projected onto the screen, a juggernaut demon, seemed to stand up straighter and prouder (_That shouldn't be possible _Near noted feeling his heart begin to tug painfully) "I began to think about who I could trust and who I could control in a worst case scenario. About who could best serve my interests. About what I could do to insure your collective demise. About who could help guarantee that Kira's legacy will never end."

"Is there a point to all this, Yagami?" Near snapped.

"The point?" Light asked. This time his mouth had contorted itself a monstrous smirk, eyes burning with a reserve of power reserved for the black hearted and the soulless. Kira had taken off his mask and shown his true face. "The point is that you never had any chance of winning this. Oh, also, just incidentally, you're all surrounded by ninjas."

A loud _kashunk _was heard, and everyone but Light turned to see the source of the disruptive noise. Lidner gasped, Ide turned white, and Mogi uttered a choked, "No!", but the scene remained the same: the front end of a _katana _sword sticking out the center of Matsuda's chest. Blood tricked out of his mouth, a stupefied, wide "o", and his eyes bulged with excruciating terror as they turned about to see his attacker. The expression on his face said more than any words that his tongue could produce: _This is most certainly the worst case scenario, and we're all most certainly screwed._

He was right.

Amidst the agony, Matsuda somehow noted with only faint surprise that his attacker was indeed a ninja. The scene struck him as surreal and abstract, made murky and intangible by the fact that he had never once considered the idea that his death would be caused by one. Most people didn't die by ninjas, and they were rare nowadays of course, assassins employed largely by the wealthy and the powerful. Yet all the same, there stood a man dressed vastly in black with a red cloth belt, his face masked but for his eyes. It was this man, this ninja that held the hilt of the sword, and with same strange sense of delirium, that same dreamy sense of watching art house films he couldn't understand in the classy theater with his dates, Matsuda realized that the man's glaring eyes looked like brown chestnuts.

"Yagami, you mother-" Matsuda began.

The ninja interrupted Matsuda by slashing his blade upwards, slicing through the flesh like a hot knife through butter, striking horizontally through the neck. Matsuda's severed head fell to the ground, eyes wide, mouth agape, his last moments of life an utter disillusionment. The head rolled a few inches towards Light, and he kicked it like he would a soccer ball. Perhaps due to unholy miracle, the head flew and struck Mogi in his.

"BOOM, BITCHES!" Light roared, arms spread out in triumph.

From the beams of the warehouse the ninjas fell, silent, quick, precise, a directed whirlwind of glinting steel and ebony cloth. For a moment, it didn't look to the detectives like there was a number of armed individuals leaping from the ceiling with murderous intent; it looked more like the inception of some amoral natural disaster, getting ready to sweep them all away. A romantic and glorious past opened before their eyes, and the heat of the moment held them still like the eyes of a tiger.

Then an arrow fired by a ninja and his bow exited through the back of Ide's left eye and all bets were considered off.

The detectives began firing, a similarly destructive wave of bullets erupting from the barrels of their firearms. The air became leaden with the smell of dull gunpowder, and the dark of the room lighted up briefly and precipitously with each frantic pull of the triggers.

"I should've known!" Rester roared, firing his pistol as quickly as he could. It didn't do him much good: Rester was an excellent marksman, but the ninjas were running inhumanely fast, moving in and out of the shadows so quickly that it was becoming difficult to distinguish one from the other. Finally, he pointed the barrel at Light's smirking face: the god in the form of man responded by crossing his arms and slightly widening his grin, as if the great deity was amused by the display of such a primitive tool. "If we go down, I'll be bringing you with me, you twisted son of a-"

Rester's tirade against Light was cut short abruptly short: a ninja, hooded, emotionless, serene, bashed the right side of Rester's face in with an enormous kanabō. In the past, Light may have been moderately repelled by such grotesque savage. But now, the sight of a spiked club colliding into another man's face, the tearing of his flesh, the dislodging of his eye, the severance of his tongue, with all the ultra-violence confronting him, Light could only see the rising of a delicious soufflé.

Gevanni, his neck lopped off from the rest of his body via a kusarigama chain-sickle. Mogi, the top of his head crushed in by an iron nun-chuck. Lidner, her heart penetrated by the stabbing of a naginata, gorgeous face crumpled into an expression of utter agony as she coughed blood onto the head of the unfazed ninja.

"Yagami! Call them off!" An irate voice barked from behind Light. The prideful deity glanced over his shoulder with a controlled, subtle look of mild vexation. Aizawa, his face red and perspiring, his nostrils flaring, his eyes burning maliciously with black fire, held Teru captive: the last remaining KTU detective tightly held an arm around Mikami's shoulder, and the other arm pressed a .45 ACP into the side of his forehead. A small fire of indignation began to flicker within the cold confines of Teru's icy demeanor. It was the look of a priest of royalty incensed that such an inferior infidel would dare accost him in such an egregious manner. "Call them off, or I blow the freak's brains out! See if I won't, Light!"

"This is a grave transgression that you're committing, blasphemer," Teru said, face composed like granite. "Beg for mercy at the feet of the Kira, and perhaps He will be forgiving enough to grant you a painless death."

"You shut your mouth!" Aizawa roared into Teru's ear. Teru cringed at the outburst but then quickly reacquired his usual sneer of disdain. Aizawa turned back to Light: "Do what I say, Light! Now!"

"Aizawa, please, you're only making this harder for yourself," Light said. The look of irritation subsided and was replaced by a grin so infuriatingly smug that Aizawa began to tremble involuntarily. "There's no need to panic. I mean, you're dealing with a just and merciful deity here! Stand down now, and I'll let you OD on vicodin."

"Screw you, Light, you friggin' sadist!" Aizawa shouted. "You're not getting out of this one! Not again! Not this time! I don't care how it goes down, but-"

An agonizing shard of pain quickly flared inside Aizawa's stomach and cut his outburst short. Had not Aizawa not been distracted by the excruciating distraction, he would have probably recognized that not only had Mikami struck his stomach into his stomach, but he had yanked his gun from his holster less than a second afterwards. Likewise, the stunned detective was too busy gasping for air to notice the foot crashing into his right cheekbone: Aizawa had, in fact, been an ardent mixed martial arts fan, and had not white stars been brilliantly exploding right before his very eyes, he would have been able to clarify for all that Mikami had just executed a tae kwon do tornado kick.

The ninjas were thorough and intrepid in their response to this kick: two of the warriors threw a total of eight kunai knives in rapid succession at Aizawa, and all eight of the knives struck him before he hit the ground. Aizawa roared something that was a hybrid of distraught rage and helpless shock, but whether or not the roar was released right after the kick or the knives was uncertain. What was more apparent was that, impressively, he continued to breathe and to live, albeit hoarsely, his breath racked with involuntary convolutions. A refreshing end to the ambiguity occurred merely seconds later, and the last thing that Aizawa saw with his head lying on the ground was a ninja swooping down upon him, landing on his haunches, driving his katana through his forehead.

All things considered, it wasn't the worst way to go out,

During this time, Near had watched the systematic execution of his teammates with horrified, fascinated eyes, horrified in that they had all been brutally murdered and he was next, fascinated in that something this unlikely, this improbable, this bloody fantastic was actually happening to him. In his short life, Near had done more than most people: he had solved crimes that burdened entire countries, he had thrown some of the world's most powerful criminals into prison, and he had made his fair share of enemies worldwide. Never though, _never_, did he think that his end would come at the hand of a mythical class of warrior, a frequent, perhaps overused, trope of movies, television, and video games. The astronomical odds mesmerized him, if nothing else.

_Akin to Sherlock Holmes finding out that Moriarty hired Vikings, I suppose _Near thought.

Near felt something cold, hard, and metallic press into the side of his head. He turned around, and with a dazed lack of surprise, saw Teru Mikami pressing Aizawa's pistol into his head. "They say not to suffer the little children, for they are the Kingdom of Heaven," he said, calmly enough. "But they also say that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. Please do not force me to use the rod, child. I've used the rod before, and I don't like what I become when I do."

"Oh, but I do," Light said to Near. "I can't tell you how lucky I was to find Teru, Near. As you well know, genius lawyers aren't easy to come by. But genius lawyers trained by the Israeli Army who know how to hide personal information from the likes of you? I think they've got a name for that back in England. What do they call it, Near? 'A diamond in the rough'?"

Near felt dazed, disoriented. Too much was happening too fast, and his brain, advanced as it was, struggled to comprehend the horrible magnitude of the situation. He placed a hand on his forehead, hoping to cool it down. No dice: the hand was too sweaty, too warm. "The Israeli Army...?" he began.

"It wasn't easy to get them to take in a foreigner, that I can assure you," Teru said. To Near it didn't sound like the man was bragging, just that he was telling the truth. But as you can already tell, I have skills, the sort of skills that four star generals with deep pockets pay gladly for. But that's another story for another time, I suppose."

"Only there won't be a next time for you, you little atheist turd, because we're going to crucify your little white ass," Light added. Now _that _was gloating; despite Near's position, he could feel his lips curl into an indignant snarl. "What a pity. Personally, my favorite part is how he left the army: mountains of body bags behind him."

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a morally ambiguous battle," Teru concurred.

"But enough politics," Light said. "Granted, I pulled enough strings here, but I'd like you two to meet the woman who, shall we say, 'facilitated' my inevitable victory." He gestured with his hands towards a corner of the room. "Take a bow, why don't you? Call it generosity if you will, but this is your win as well."

"And a considerable victory it was, Mr. Yagami," said a feminine voice. All three men looked towards the direction of the voice, in the south east wing of the warehouse. There wasn't much there: a few crates, a dolly here and there, and an extended steel walkway that led upwards to a battered, unkempt office. Still, one thing could be seen: a curvy, fit, and sultry outline, one that appeared to be quite at ease with the results of bloody mayhem surrounding her. "I hope you appreciate just how unusual this conquest was for you. The League of Assassins does not often perform such... favors."

The woman moved forward, her appearance becoming clearer and clearer as she did so. After a few steps, she stood before them in her full, unadulterated, illimitable exquisiteness.

Skin the color of milk chocolate. Long, luxuriant, silky hair like cinnamon and mocha. Pouting, full, red lips. Her amber eyes stared at the three men humorlessly, but her sobriety didn't detract from her beauty in the least. She could have been weeping for joy or crying tears of rage: the beauty, so pliable, would have remained the same.

_And that body_ Light thought. _Oh God, that body. And I've seen women before, as many women as I've wanted. But this one, this one is something special. Like a sculpture that Michaelangelo dreamed of or a painting Blake never got around to._ Light felt as if he could swoon with such thoughts, then redoubled his efforts to maintain his stance. Under any other occasion, he would have to have this woman, perhaps make her his queen, but now was not the time. Besides, she had her lover to think of, the lover that Kira was going to mop the floor with. Perhaps, after the bloody business was concluded, he would be able to come to an arrangement with her. It was not necessary, however. He wanted her, but he didn't _need _her. Kira needed no one; it was the world that needed Kira.

Near was not at an age to appreciate women nor was he the type of person to appreciate physical beauty (the only women who really in interested him were Mary Shelly and J.K. Rowling). However, this woman was different: this woman was a queen, an amazon, a goddess, with all the allurement befitting of such ranks. Despite logically fearing for his own life, he was utterly awed by the only thing he had ever considered divine, even if she was an ally of his enemy. Ludicrously yet somehow convincingly, Near's mind suggested the possibility that the real tragedy here wasn't his imminent death but the fact that he would never know the touch of such a godly woman.

Teru momentarily closed his eyes, indulging himself with a brief, however necessary (and it _was_ necessary) image of himself loving this woman, a whirl of passion, laughter, and sublime joy. Imagining the pleasure and the bliss inherent in such a union, he almost found himself moaning. But then he opened his eyes, and he rid himself of the transgressive euphoria he so desired. Teru had loved women in his time, but each and every one of them had disappointed him, sickening him with their mediocrity, poisoning him with their apathetic contentment, dizzying him their acceptance of their heretical and corrupt world. They were all alike, these women and these men, these barbarians, the same filth that compelled him to shower for hours, hoping to wash off all the sweat and the sex and the murder. Women looked better than their male counterparts, true, but did not Lilith supersede Adam in appearance? Did not Delilah, oh so fair, betray Samson? And did not the Christ reject Magdalene, the whore and the sow? No, this woman looked to be heavenly, but she was undoubtedly as debauched as the rest of them. If Kira, in his infinite wisdom, deigned to associate the woman with a covenant, then so be it. He would not and could not question the word of his master. But he would not let himself forget the Original Sin anytime soon.

"So is everything to your satisfaction, Mr. Yagami?" Talia al Ghul asked.

Light thought. "I notice you didn't use the man-bats," he said at last.

Talia's face indicated suppressed irritation, but she dismissed Light's complaint with a wave of her hand. "The man-bats were not needed for this assassination," she said. She gave the maimed cadavers an unpleasant look, as if employing her ninjas for the like of them was an egregious waste of her time. "This... this was all too easy."

Light stared blankly at Talia, and after a few moments she fidgeted uncomfortably. Talia didn't many men (she only feared, in her way, two men, both similar to one another yet both so utterly antithetical), but then again Light Yagami wasn't most men. She didn't know much about him, but then she knew enough. Knew how impossibly brilliant he was. Knew that he could have any one he wanted in the palm of his hands with only a few words. Knew just how depraved and sadistic he could be when he wanted to. Talia had the sense that she was watching a man without a face ponder which mask to put on next, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know how Light's brain worked, what triggers and connections were made inside that haunted mind of his. It unnerved her, and the juxtaposition of this man with the masked man that she loved made her feel faintly ill.

_No _She thought. _No, they're not alike. They're not alike at all._

Teru stirred, scratched his neck. He looked uncomfortable. And if the brutally insane bodyguard was uncertain of what his boss was going to do, then...

Light's face brightened unexpectedly. "It's just as well," he remarked. "We can't afford to shed temperance until we clash with you-know-who, not that I want him to, you understand, only that I expect him to." Light tilted his head a little in the direction of Talia, and gave her a conspiring smile: Talia felt her legs involuntarily tighten. "Say, Talia, speaking of men who are willing to beat the ever-loving crap out of your baby daddy, just how is your dear old dad doing nowadays? Ra's still with that Greenpeace thing of his?"

Talia felt something hot and bitter rise up in her throat. It was something that extensive training had taught her to master and control, so much so that she rarely suffered it nowadays. Still, she immediately recognized that sour tang flooding her mind: it was rage, and it was strong. Moving towards the shadows, she clenched a concealed hand.

"Father is fine, Mr. Yagami," Talia said, trying to sound like she didn't want to water-board him. "The reason that he is not here is because he has been... preoccupied. I control the League of Assassins in his stead, as you can see."

"As I can see," Light murmured, his eyes slightly vacant. He lifted his eyes from her ass, and the old, implying grin returned again. "And how about Lex, Talia? Heard from Dr. Evil recently? He was the one who told me how to contact you, after all. As it turns out, he hates you almost as much as he hates the glory boy. Such an angry man, Talia, such a bitter man! Really, they only cloud your judgment. Makes you harbor unnecessary grudges." The smile became wider, the glint in his eyes sharper. "Still, how else can a man react? Especially when an arrogant whore tanks his presidency?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Live and learn, I suppose."

Before Talia could reply (And she was glad that she was prevented from doing so: what she had to say to Yagami would have made even her beloved gasp, and she was not entirely sure that her ninjas could intercept Mikami before he snapped her neck with his knee), Light pointed at the ninja closest to Near. The only details one could make about this ninja up close were that he was black and that his eyes showed disdain for the entire situation.

"You there, Tonto," Light said. "I want you and Kato there," he pointed to the ninja closest to "Tonto", "to interrogate the little snot. Find out where his orphanage is so I can burn it to the ground. Then I want you and the rest of the Peanut Gallery to hunt any and all of the survivors. I'll leave the nature of the executions to your judgment, but I do advise creativity and-"

"I won't tell you a thing," Near said, voice devoid of fear and cold as ice. Talia and Light turned to look with mildly intrigued looks on their faces. "I don't care what you do to me. I'll never sell out my comrades, least of all my mentor, so you might as well kill me now, you demented psychopath."

Teru started for a moment at the insult but then held his peace. _This boy really isn't afraid of Death _ he thought with some wonder. _Although, I suppose it only makes sense. Kira, He who is Most Merciful and Just, he told me of how he worked with a man who was the Devil himself, how he gave him a chance for redemption, how the ungrateful infidel refused to stop trying to destroy Man, how God had no choice but to vanquish the HERETIC! _The voice of Teru's thoughts increased suddenly and greatly at this last word, but he held his breath in tightly, doing a proficient job of disguising his tension. _I don't think I've been excited in all a while. It must be because of this boy. Quite the little workout he gave me. Very much like his master. Blasphemers, no doubt, but there's skill there too. Nothing, not even death, will stop a similar child from seeing his vengeance through to the end. _Teru's eyes widened slightly enough that it didn't attract any attention. He knew that he had struck upon something paramount. _So if Death isn't what he fears..._

Light took a hit, inhaled, exhaled, surveyed the situation with a detached expression. He glanced back at Talia. "So should I put this out in his eyes, or should the kid grow up with no lead in his pencil?" he asked.

Talia looked as if she were about to reply but then widened her eyes ever so slightly and curled her nose, as if in disgust. As Light turned to look at what he expected to be the object of her gaze of detestation, he began to wonder if Teru could hold off the ninjas after he, say, stabbed Talia in her neck with his pencil and then made his escape. No one could look at him that Kira, nosiree Bob. No one could stare at Kira the way he looked at the humans.

Light's train of thought came to an abrupt halt when he realized that Talia was staring not at him but at Teru and Near. And, truth be told, if he didn't want Teru to keep obeying him, he would have widened his eyes and curled his nose too.

Teru had fallen to his knees, facing Near. As strange as this act was, Teru's proceeding action was even more so, as well as disturbing. With one hand pressing the gun into the side of Near's head, Teru used his other hand to cradle the back of the head with a rigid claw. With the lunatic boring holes into him with his coldly gleeful eyes, Near found himself less certain than ever about being anywhere close to the psychopath.

"Little man," Teru said, "do you believe in Hell?"

"I believe in the spirit of man," Near replied, glowering. In truth, he had had a difficult time concealing his disgust in the brief yet utterly horrible belief that the lunatic was about to kiss him. It was going to be difficult to reason with this man, let alone fool him into releasing him: the dossiers said that Mikami basically regarded life as absurd and that it could only make sense if you forced it to. Very challenging to deal with such impractical idealists. Still, he sounded as brave and steady as he could. "I believe that man doesn't need to worship false deities in order to function. I believe-"

"I did not ask if you believe in God, little man," Teru interrupted. He narrowed his eyes: Near could see something hiding behind those iron-clad eyes, something patient, something plotting, but ultimately something that wouldn't hesitate to crack his skull open. Teru was deluded yet still brilliant. Near couldn't let himself forget that. "What I asked was whether or not you believe in Hell. I'd dig my thumbs into your eyes for your wretched insolence, but I'm actually curious to hear your answer. Still, I wouldn't push my luck, if I were you."

"Fine then, I don't" Near said, confidently enough. "I don't believe in Hell."

"Why not?" Teru asked.

"Because I find the idea ludicrous," Near answered. "A burning pit where the damned are tortured by demons and devils? A realm ruled by a monster, as every bit as flamboyantly evil as Darth Vader or Sauron? The idea is ridiculous and luidcrous."

"Then you've completely missed the point," Teru said.

"How's that?" Near asked.

"Because you're in Hell right now, child" Teru said. "And not just because the lord Kira has seen fit to end your little blasphemous life either and with what I pray will be in an excrutiating manner. No, little man, life is Hell for all, the young and the old, the white and the black, the stupid and the wise. Those who deny the existence of Hell merely haven't understood the punchline. Well, take this bit of wisdom, free of charge and on the house. You know Hell? That terrible underworld realm of burning torture and cruel demons? It's not underground. No. It's within you. It's within man. Hell is within man. Heaven resides within man too, but people always prefer the Inferno, don't they? The last two thirds of the Divine Comedy never really seem to affect others like the sight of Greek monstrosities and the scent of burning flesh does. But, all the same, man makes civilization based on what's within him, what's in his heart. That's where everything comes from, you know. And, as you can clearly see, especially with all the blood and the gore surrounding you, mind you, life is Hell."

Near scoffed. "That's just melodramatic hyperbole," he said. "Life's not that callous nor is it that mysterious. It simply _is. _Everything can be explained with logic."

At first, Near thought that he had gone too far. Fire the color of factory smog leaped up in Mikami's eyes but then died so quickly that it could have been subliminal. Near was reminded of the Ralph Steadman drawing Ryuzaki had once shown him and thought that Teru looked more than a bit like them: crude, rough, angry enough to be declared not legally insane, but off-the-record crazy.

The eyes drilled into him for an uncomfortably long time, blank and wondering but undoubtedly hostile. "You're still young," Teru replied at last, his voice as flat as a blood and oil slicked highway. It sounded like he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to Near. "You're still naïve. You haven't understood the joke yet. Haven't figured out that there is a joke. You think that the world makes sense. Well, it doesn't. The world doesn't make sense. The world is always falling apart, yet it never ends. Things just go on and on and on, forever and ever. Therein lies the joke: we could have had Heaven this entire time, if not for the fact that the Babylonians and the Philistines prefer Hell. What happens in Hell? Agony. Agony, pure and simple. What happens in life? Agony: War. Plague. Indifference to all of the sex and to all of the murder. And we expect it all; we expect to see the bodies splatter when they hit the ground, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. What else can Pandemonium's denizens expect? In that sense, as you are an insidious atheist, I would think that Death tempts you. Death, the refuge from the maelstrom. After all, if, as you believe, neither Heaven nor Hell reside within or without man, well, Death would become your last, great escape, wouldn't it?"

"What are you trying to say?" Near asked. His mouth felt dry, and it was becoming more and more difficult to swallow without the sensation of lead pushing down his neck.

"What I'm saying is that if you don't tell us the location of that bastard orphanage and the names of all the people in it, I will inflict you with the most excruciating agony conceivable and in as many ways as I can imagine," Teru said. "I'll break all of your toes and fingers before I saw through your hands and feet. Stick skewers through your ribs. Use bolt cutters to tear off your nose. Rub glass into your eyes. Cut off your ears with a steak knife. Whip your back with barbed wire. Shatter your jaw with a sledge hammer. Pour gasoline all over you, set you on fire, and then put the fire out before it kills you."

Teru's eyes went into reaper mode then, two orbs burning brilliantly, luminous and fiery like galaxies colliding into one another. Near felt something wet grow near his crotch as Teru roughly pressed to his forehead with a snarl. "AND THEN I'LL LET YOU LIVE AS LONG AS I CAN, RIVER!"

"Oh... oh god..." Near whispered, his eyes as wide as they could possibly be, his voice little more than a quiver. He knew then that all the adults had been wrong. Monsters didn't live in the closet. Monsters didn't hide under the bed. Monsters didn't even lurk in the basement. But monsters undoubtedly existed, and as Mikami proved, monsters were men.

"Now you call upon Him", Teru noted, eyes cooling back down to what could best be considered human. He curled his nose in disgust, as if he had just realized that he had been touching a cockroach all this time, and shoved the boy away from him. Near landed on his hands and knees painfully but did not cry out. With his face turned away from everyone and with his abundant hair covering the sides of it, no one could see tears of shame silently stream their ways down his clenched eyes.

"I take it you want the other option then," Teru said. "Right: a lobotomy. You've chosen well, child."

Teru walked away with the kind of expression that suggested that he didn't just threaten to torture a child and approached his god.

"Been reading Faulkner again, Teru?" Light asked. He passed the joint to Teru.

Teru took a hit, the smoke billowing around his granite face like sulfuric tendrils. "I find that his nihilistic prose indicates the tragically necessary deaths of cultural epochs," he said. He took another, briefer hit before passing it back. "And also discourages me from choking other with tourniquets."

"I'm sure," Light said. He called over to the ninja who grabbed Near's nape: "Make sure he reveals the name of everyone in that accursed orphanage! I want to nip this in the bud before the day is through!"

"Wait! No!" Near cried out, eyes widened in alarm. "You've got to answer me! You've got to answer my last question! You've already won! What the hell do you have to lose at this point?"

Light rolled his eyes around a little, as if in thought. He didn't seem terribly hurried. Then he took another hit from his jay. "Talk," he said, steam billowing from his mouth.

"You had ninjas here this entire time," Near said. "You could have killed us all anytime you wanted. So why the charade? Why the theatrics? Why did you draw it out so long? Why did you tell us all those things?"

Light arched an eyebrow and smiled; Near involuntarily felt a shudder pass through his body.

Near had never believed in the Devil up until now.

"Why, that's quite simple, Near," Light grinned. "I wanted to piss on L's grave one last time."

Near opened his mouth as if to reply but shut it without saying a word. He looked crestfallen but not surprised in the least. He hung his head down, his hair hiding his face; after a few seconds of silence, the ninja grabbed his nape again and dragged him to the north west side of the warehouse, as dark as the rest of the building. The other ninja followed them silently; neither ninja appeared to be thrilled with the task at hand. Eventually, the darkness of the outer rim swallowed them whole.

_Out of sight, out of mind _Light thought and grinned.

"Oh, I do so love a happy ending," Light noted wryly. He turned to look at Talia. "Is the van ready yet?"

"Almost," Talia said. Her expression was now of mild disgust mixed with slight respect, disgust in that Kira had plotted the execution of a child, respect in that he had the skills to pull all of this off. "It is outside, undergoing inspection as we speak. I need to speak with my soldiers and inform them of the next mission before we leave though."

"As you will," Light said. Talia walked away, doing her best not to look behind her as Lot's wife did in those stories her father had once told her as a little girl. She was aware that she would not turn into a pillar of salt, but staring at Kira longer than was necessary was surely ill-advised for one's health. She walked away about twenty feet and began to confer with the rest of her ninjas.

"Incredible," said a raucous, guttural voice, the cawing of a crow, the grinding of a handsaw against iron and steel. "You truly are the most interesting human I've ever met, Light Yagami. I knew that I made the right move when I decided not to write your name down. I don't think I've been entertained this much in a long, long time."

Light looked up towards the ceiling and grinned in foreknowledge of who his visitor was. In the darkness of the rafters, the figure of the reaper appeared more sinister and more predatory than they actually were (though this knowledge didn't exactly ease Light's sense of dread, spoiling his ecstasy like flies spoiling a delicious steak). Encased by thick streams of inky shadow, a lanky, winged form with gleeful, shining white eyes leered at the scene below, as jubilantly knowing as the eye sockets of a skull.

The figure crouched more towards the thin light afforded by the windows, making his appearance all the more conspicuous. Something at least seven feet tall, anthropomorphic, a grotesque amalgamation of feathers, deathly pale skin, and large raven-like wings. However, as the figure became easier to see, the eyes cooled down into the more actual set of crimson pupils set against dark yellow irises like rotting green olives, at best the eyes of a cruel, bored child pulling the wings off of a fly, at their worst the rapaciously hungry eyes of a gluttonous beast.

"Come now, Ryuk," Light smirked. "Was there any doubt as to my utterly decimating my enemies?"

"You could say that," Ryuk chuckled. He stepped off the rafter and beat his wings slowly, carrying himself softly down to the floor. He landed down on his haunches but then straightened himself out, and at this level Light could tell that Ryuk wasn't so much seven feet tall as he was seven feet five inches tall, at least two heads higher than him. Staring into that alarmingly grotesque of the mammoth god of the dead would have scared most people, but then Light Yagami wasn't most people. True, Light was somewhat intimidated by the reaper, but it was more like the kind of intimidation that a gun owner would show for his piece, slight, thin, as if the gun owner knew that the gun could kill people but doubted that it would ever blow his brains out. For the most part, Light stared at Ryuk like they were equals, less out of mutual respect and more out of the knowledge that the shinigami could snuff Light any time he wished. Then again, Light continually reminded Ryuk that he could convince him to write his name down, and in such a way that involved choking and sex jelly. That, more or less, gave them the unique relationship of neither fearing nor trusting one another, a bromance built on the foundation of boredom and murder. "For a moment there, I did think that you were gonna let your pride screw you over. I figured, you couldn't keep this up forever. Somewhere along the line, you'd trip up. But look at all this here! Blood! Gore! Ninjas! Actual, authentic, real life ninjas! Just when I think that there's no direction for you to go but down, you strap on a rocket and go zooming off into the stratosphere! For the first time in my life, I think I may actually be proud of you!"

Light adjusted his suit and tie, not looking particularly concerned with his attire while he did it. "Well, we Yagami's do pride ourselves on innovation," he said. He glanced over at Teru: "Speaking of death gods and their jobs, Teru, did you happen to, ah, 'take care' of Misa like I asked you to?"

Teru's face fell: he had begun to grin in a small but victorious kind of way, but now his mouth had fallen into a frown that even more melancholy than usual, if that was possible (somehow, it was). "I... I did as you commanded, my liege," Teru said, keeping his eyes elsewhere (_Even when confirming that he carried out my orders, he's modest _Light noted with some pride). "It's just... well, I... are you absolutely sure that it was right for me to...?" his voice trailed off. Somewhere in the more illogical, unconscious areas of his mind, voicing actions became the same as actually performing them.

"Teru, Teru, even in the midst of all this necessary bloodshed, you still somehow manage to remain empathic," Light said. He slid a brotherly arm around Teru: the shoulders were tight and stiff but did not resist. "I know that I chose you wisely, now. But yes, Teru, Misa's death was necessary. After all, she never would have made it this far. It would have been cruel and capricious for me to drag her along with us, especially considering where we're going and who we're going to meet. Besides, for souls like us, a painless death is something that's rarer than it should be." He fell silent and thought for a moment. "Uh, you did give her a painless death, didn't you, Teru?"

"I wrote the cause of death as a cranial hemorrhage as per your instructions, my lord," Teru said. "She died minutes after she finished watching her favorite film. The Little Mermaid was her favorite movie, wasn't it, Almighty?"

"It was indeed," Light said, patting Teru's shoulder before he let go. "A pity that she couldn't have lasted this long. I loved her (_In my own way), _and she was... unusually resourceful. But life goes on, doesn't it?" Light glanced at Ryuk once more. "Speaking of comrades, I trust that I can still rely on you, Ryuk. There's work a plenty to be done, and I'm sure that your talents will come in great use once we hit the states."

"You can rely on me until you bore me, Light," Ryuk said. There was something dangerously presumptuous in the reaper's voice that Light disliked but did not object to out loud; he retained his confident demeanor all the same, not wanting to look weak in front of his ardent subject. "Same rules as before, guy. I'm not on your side, and I'm not on his. I'm just here for the ride. You keep me entertained and you can take over all of outer space for all I care." Something very minute yet not insignificant gleamed in his olive eyes. "You start to bore me like that crappy Godard film you forced me to watch, and I'll give you the shaft. I almost came close to killing you this time, you know. If you had lost to Near, I would've snuffed you in a heartbeat. It's only the fact that you're going to go after the original American Bad-Ass that I'm letting you live."

"Ryuk, if you think I will stand here and allow you to insult Kira, He Who Bears The Sephirot-", Teru began.

"Forget it, Teru," Light said, waving a dismissive hand and began to move towards the door. "I still have use for our impetuous friend here," he gave Ryuk a cold glance over his shoulders, "I'll continue to grant the heathen levity. So long as he doesn't forget who's working for who here, that is."

"Me? Work for you?" Ryuk laughed. "Ha! That'll be the day!"

"Ryuk, if I were you I would bear in mind that every dog has his day and-" Light began.

"Who are you talking to?" Talia asked. Teru and Light whirled around, startled. She had been standing behind them, for how long neither of them knew.

"Um..." Teru began, not really sure what to say.

"Just the past, Talia," Light said, making the save. He walked away a little and surveyed the building with a pleased, nostalgic look. "Just the past."

"Freak," Talia said under her breath, beginning to walk away from the two.

"What was that, Talia?" Light asked. He walked briskly and caught up with her, Ryuk and Teru in tow. His voice, a even level of cheerfulness, could not suppress a tinge of rancor. He turned his head slightly to get a better look at Talia; she told herself that it must have been her imagination that made her see, however briefly, his eyes narrow into slits. It wasn't the slits that unnerved her though. It was the similarity of Yagami's slitted eyes and the slitted eyes of her beloved. Against her will, the right eyes of the monster brought fully to mind the image of her son's father, a man with the form of a demon. His true form, anyway. "Don't think I heard you there."

"I said that the vehicle is ready", Talia lied. She did her best to keep the indignation out of her voice. It was a disgrace that the daughter of the Demon's Head should chauffeur a psychopath about, especially one that now seemed to confer with invisible, imaginary confidants. Still, given time, the House of al Ghul could become the enemy of the House of Yagami. "A military grade caravan, as you requested. From there, it should take forty minutes to reach Kojima Forest. After that, it will take four hours to fly to the outskirts of the city. But I'm afraid that you will be on your own at that point. The League would not wage war with the city's protector. Not now, anyway."

"Yes, well, as they put it in that country, 'it is what it is', isn't it?" Light asked. All four individuals walked until they reached the front doors of the warehouse. Two ninjas waited there, each one holding a handle. When they saw that their mistress was ready to leave, each grabbed a handle and pulled in the opposite direction, allowing the last dying rays of the sun to fall onto them. The ninjas fooled behind the four as they walked outside. "Your assistance would be well received, Talia, but I'm not surprised that you're not inclined to tackle your boy-toy again. No matter: we have all we need to face him now. And all we need to bring him to our side."

In front of the group lied the entrance yard to the warehouse, a microscosmic warehouse every bit as ashen and barren as the Yellow Box itself. Here and there lied a few mementos of the warehouse's past glory years, beaten and worn with age. Stacks of moldy packing crates; a wooden spool with a sparse amount of coil; the burned out carcass of an disused car, like the steel skeleton of a dinosaur; a thin, bending, steel wire fence touched here and there with a half assed amount of barbed wire. In the center of the yard rested an enormous dark green camouflaged military caravan. Two ninjas stood guarding it, arms folded, neither distinguishable from the rest, composed, disciplined, and patient.

"Do you honestly think he will accept?" Talia asked.

"Do you honestly think he won't?" Light asked back.

"He's not a man who follows," Talia said. "He's a man who leads. It comes naturally to him, I suppose. For him, it has nothing to do with pride and everything to do with morality. That's why so many weaker, disillusioned men and women hold faith in him, however archaic his values may be."

"And that's why Kira is here," Light replied. "Soon our mutual friend will be reborn. With my help, he'll be enhanced, remade, improved, ready to fight this new era of greed and depravity."

"And what will happen when he refuses your methods as he has refused similar methods in the past?" Talia asked.

Light gave Talia a look, and that look told everything he had intended for a possible refusal. For the second time that day, a cold, frigid chill ran up and down her spine like the sensation of ice water being thrown upon her. In her time, she had earned the ire of psychotic clowns, disfigured ex-D.A.'s, and psychopathic, bandaged surgeons, but with the exception of that necessary fear of death, she had never really seen any of them as any one who could overthrow the House of al Ghul, let alone the House of the Bat.

This man though... this seemingly ordinary, regular, handsome young man devoid of superpowers or fantastic origins or cosmic allies... this man could.

"Pray that it doesn't come to that," Light said.

Silently, Light, Teru, and all the ninjas sans for one climbed into the back hatch of the caravan and sat down on two benches set diagonally apart, facing one another. Talia climbed into the passenger seat, and the largest ninja of them all sat down in the driver's seat. Ryuk perched himself noiselessly on the top of the caravan.

Light took the last hit of his joint and tossed it outside the hatch. A few moments passed, and he began to look impatient.

Light began: "How long will it take for them to get the little squirt to-"

A scream comprised of absolute agony and unmitigated despair wailed through the courtyard from the warehouse, the soft winds doing nothing to soften the horror behind the outcry. One of the ninjas visibly shuddered; another shook his head, as if disappointing that the League had lowered its dignity via this unsightly torture.

"Never mind," Light commented, stretching out his legs, arms resting behind his back.

Teru took his seat among the ninjas on the row opposite Light's. "To Gotham, my lord?"

"To Gotham," Light confirmed. "I've got a kingdom to rule, after all."

"And a dark knight to collect."


	2. Never Mind The Bollocks Heres The Batman

**CHAPTER II**

**NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE BATMAN**

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

-Mark 8:36

When casting out your demon, be careful that you don't cast out what makes you you.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

What? We can't stop here! This is bat country!

- Raoul Duke, _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_

Note: _Koumori _is Japanese for "bat". Also, if the grammar is intolerably inadequate, let me know and I'll fix it up.

* * *

><p>"YOU'RE DIGGING YOUR OWN GRAVE, YAGAMI!" A furious voice roared through the channels of the sewers. "GIVE IT UP WHILE YOU CAN STILL WALK!"<p>

_ Crap crap crap crap crap crap! _Thought Light Yagami as he ran down those very same channels, kicking at whatever rancid rat got in his way in this underground industrial hell, slipping here and there on mucks of varicolored slime. Thank God he had decided to wear only black pants and a black, hooded sweater: he was almost certain to be pummeled, but at least it wouldn't be in his Armani. _Oh god oh god oh god what if he catches me WHAT IF HE CATCHES ME_?"

Before Kira, Light never thought that he would ever do anything remotely close to this: running through crap and filth for his dear life, chased relentlessly by a... _Well, by a samurai, I suppose_ Light thought with impressive clarity, especially considering the visions of wheelchairs and painkillers dancing in his head. Hell, what _wasn't _ the man pursuing him? A knight. A detective. A god! _(Probably a cowboy too for all I know _Light thought, hoping humor would help alleviate his crushing sense of dread. It didn't.) His pursuer was magnificent in that sheer number of complexities, one of the few on Earth to ever truly fulfill his potential. But whatever the man was, one thing was clear.

The man was pissed. Really pissed.

"YOU'RE ONLY EXACERBATING THINGS, YAGAMI!" The hoarse voice bellowed. "SURRENDER, AND MAYBE I WON'T SHATTER YOUR KNEECAPS!"

_ Need to calm down _Light thought. _I won't get out of this by panicking. If anything, it'll just end up making things worse._

To calm himself down, he latched on to the first thing that came to mind: how he winded up here, and how it had all led up to this point.

After Light and Teru had arrived in Gotham, Light contacted an associate named Shermin Fine, aka "The Broker.". Fine was a highly proficient realtor who provided secret lairs and hideouts, largely to Gotham's criminal underworld. Shermin had found properties and facilitated land acquisitions for the likes of Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Black Mask. Was currently working for Black Mask, as a matter of fact. That would have to be corrected. _Broker is too valuable for me to waste right now _Light told himself _He's one of the few masterminds in Gotham that isn't a freak like Crane or Nigma._

Moreover, Light liked the way Fine operated. He was elusive enough to evade the G Men, but he was conspicuous enough to attract his clientele. A few phone calls was all it took for Teru to eventually reach the Broker and arrange for them to negotiate the terms inside the Broker's limo. With his black suit, slicked back brown hair, and sleek sunglasses, the two almost looked like twins.

Teru had told Broker about Kira's terms: that he pledge himself to Kira, that he forsake Black Mask, and that he procure His Lordship fitting lodgings. It took only a laptop, a pen, and a scrap of the Death Note to convince Broker that Teru wasn't bluffing.

"Kira is quite brilliant," Broker had told Mikami, betraying no emotion at the fact that the uptight attorney across from him had murdered someone else. "I can tell that just by noting the types of people he kills. Criminals mostly. More and more politicians, lawyers and corporate scum. Kira evidently likes to keep a balance. Balance is good for business, Mr. Mikami. And, to be honest, working with lunatics like Humpty Dumpty and Warren White often runs counter to the rather practical affair of making money."

"Kira guarantees your protection, Mr. Fine," Teru had told Broker in sufficient English. Fine sipped on a rum with rocks while Mikami spoke, skillfully hiding the fact that something about the pensive, uptight lawyer that unnerved him. Broker wasn't lying when he said how he valued practicality: it truly did pay the bills and sustain a privileged life. Still, practicality aside, he could still sense... an "energy" that Mikami gave off, something that said that maybe he could act in any given way at any given moment, that he had nothing to lose and had everything to gain. Like Kafka with a meat cleaver. "His lordship will allow you to continue your business but only for the legitimate crime fighters. I don't think you'll have too much trouble there: more and more young masks have been cropping up in these parts recently. That Red Hood and Abuse, for example. All that His Lordship requires in return is that you furnish him with sufficient lodgings. A very reasonable set of requests, I should think," Teru added in a tone that implied any difference in opinion would be neutralized with an iron pipe.

Broker got the message and quickly obtained them an abandoned rug store, an old, peeling, and dilapidated beast hidden within the heart of Old Gotham. He also referred them to Jenna Duffy, a carpenter whose super... uh, "person's" name was The Carpenter. Truthfully, having a superhero name that was the same as your profession didn't make much sense. However, all that mattered was that Duffy succeed in quickly building them a house. Thankfully, Duffy was nowhere weird as weird as Mad Hatter and his Storybook Crew, her former associates. And her past clients, hero and villain alike, had nothing but praise for her work. She didn't look bad either: with her lean body, girlish freckles, light amber hair and working class hero get-up, it was like she was gender bending a porno. The wry, smart-ass grins was something that Light found endearing under the circumstances but would have murdered in others.

"I want the place to look ennobled and virtuous," Light had told Jenna. "I'm aware that we need to keep a low profile if we're to operate in this city, but at the same time I'd like to be reminded of what it is I'm striving for. A bare base of operations won't do much for confidence, I'm afraid."

"And what are you striving for, boss?" Jenna had asked.

Light had studied her for a few seconds in response; Jenna had the uncomfortable seeing that this man could learn more about her than she would ever want him to.

"World domination," he had said at last. His eyes, sober and serene with only a hint of malice for pizazz, at once dared her to refute him and also threatened to snap her like a twig if she did so. "So in that case, I think victory and conquest should be the primary themes of the house. But we may not have this place for long, so the furnishings should be modest. Think you can handle it?"

_ Looks like I'm working for another crackpot again _Jenna had thought. _A gorgeous crackpot, but a crackpot nonetheless._

"You got it, boss," Duffy wisely chose to say. "I've worked with a lot of the more, ah, 'ambitious', members of the mask and cape community, if you know what I mean. The Question, Green Arrow, the Titans, even Magneto, and that guy hates humans more than I hate Glee."

"Superb," Light said, in a sort of restrained and dignified manner. Maybe that was why, lunatic or not, Jenna was a bit in awe of her new employer. After all, it was rare to see a man like Light Yagami in a city like Gotham. The city, like any other, was diseased, beset by an epidemic of clinical obesity, by hundreds of homeless folks, and a tangible sense of hopeless depression and apathy. This man then, with his great beauty, stood like an angel amidst a sea of dismal corruption and bad consciences. There was no other man in Gotham who had that same kind of presence except for one, but then Wayne was an obvious given. This man though, (_More to the point, this sexy stud_ she thought) this man was new and she felt certain that whoever he was and whatever he had to do, he would make a splash. Maybe become a big fish in this big pond called Gotham.

"So, uh, does your friend here want anything in particular done to his portion of the joint?" Jenna asked, glancing at Teru. The big lunk had stood there the entire time, watching the scene with blank eyes, betraying no emotion. She too found this man to be ridiculously handsome (_That hair!_ She nearly swooned), but this attraction was tempered with some apprehension: the guy had said and done nothing the entire time she was there, yet something still convinced her that he wasn't playing with a full deck.

Teru dug in his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. This he handed to the Carpenter and said: "Here's the list."

Duffy took a look at the paper. "What the hell is German Expressionism?" she asked.

It took three hours, a handful of pills, and two thirds of a gallon of whisky to mitigate Mikami's violent tirade against what he considered, in his opinion, to be the "insular and godless agents of aesthetic decadence."

Light's portion of the building (_Three quarters is far less than befitting of his lordship _Teru had observed with awe, nearly stupefied by his master's magnanimity) was quiet but intelligent, and at parts even slyly threatening. A lot of reds were used: it was a good color, a color fit for a god, the color of passion and pain and power. A number of book cases were built, and each and every single one was packed to the brim with tomes Light considered to be sanctuaries needed for enduring the human filth: Machiavelli, Sartre, Kierkegaard, generally what Ryuk derided as "college boy crap". It was a pain shipping all his boxes of books from Japan to Gotham but well worth it in the end. There were a few paintings hanged, nothing flashy, less for decoration and more for insight. Ruben's "Fall of the Damned" right to the side of the entrance door. Bruegel's "Triumph of Death" placed over the desk. Bosch's "Last Judgment" over the bed. Impractical? Well, maybe. But Kira had to hold himself up to the same lofty standards that he demanded of the wretched anthropic monkeys. It was only fair.

Teru's part of the store was… unique (_That's bullcrap and you know it _he thought, passing the sight of a mob of rats devouring the corpse of a former compatriot _Teru's portion of the base was nuttier than Mr. Peanut). _Granted, it was difficult to brighten up the décor of a boiler room, but Duffy managed to do more than just get the job done. Some paint here, some polish there, a few more windows installed, and suddenly Perdition came closer to looking like a bearable Purgatory. It only started to look like the home of a deranged menace when Mikami started using a permanent black pen to start writing lines from Goethe's Faust, quabalic equations, and pictures of spirals all over the place. Moreover, it was difficult to work on his copy of the Death Note when he could hear "SAKUJO! SAKUJO! SAKUJO!" being screamed over and over again from below, and watching him work was like observing the schizophrenic savagery of a Vietnamese cage tiger. _Nietzsche, you better have been right when you said it's fine for a ripe apple to have a few worms _Light had thought then _One of those worms could be a human centipede for all I know._ Kira was superb at many things: tolerating lunatics who didn't contribute to his brave new world wasn't one of them.

After that, Light and Teru simply went to work, each writing in his own copy of the Death Note. There wasn't much else for them to do (nor should there have been, in Light's opinion: it was incredible how one could feel so utterly fulfilled with something that only appeared to be a few measly scraps of paper). Other than writing down the names of the wretched and the condemned, they regularly watched and read the news and even sparred with one another on a scheduled basis, mostly boxing. Light had dabbled in it back in high school, largely in the Chinese tradition (back when Light had first discovered the magic that was Jackie Chan) but now even he was surprised with just how skilled he had become only after a few sessions. When the two did watch movies, they were largely martial art films that they took notes on: "Oldboy", "Iron Monkey", "Lone Wolf and Cub", and the like. Teru was getting better too: no, he wasn't near the level of aptitude needed to really tangle with their enemy, but he was getting better all the same and (Light noticed with a twinge of displeasure) at a faster rate than Light. Still, so long as the dog didn't bite the hand that fed him, Light remained secure that he wouldn't have to shove him off a bridge with cement shoes.

Meanwhile, Light had kept Ryuk (_The fifth wheel _Light had noted with some distaste) out of his hair with regularly purchased DVD's, video games, and, of course, sacks of apples. "You can't stall for time much longer, Light," Ryuk had told him while laughing at the poor schmucks in Pasolini's _Salò _as Light wrote in the Death Note nearby (_I must be getting pretty good at this, considering that I can do my work while hearing screams of utter agony _Light thought proudly). "The movies and games that you buy are great, but they'll begin to bore me sooner or later. Considering that the only reason I'm letting you live is to amuse me, I hope to Christ you've got something up your sleeve. I can see myself getting really bored really quick."

"Your compassion continues to astound me, Ryuk," Light had said wryly, glancing at Ryuk while the reaper continued to giggle at the godless atrocities on the screen. "But I can assure you, you needn't worry about me. I would never have gotten into this if I didn't have something ready. Remember what Napoleon said, Ryuk: The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos: the winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies."

"Napoleon?" Ryuk asked then, glancing over, actually looking interested for once. "You mean the loser what danced in front of that school to get them to elect the Mexican kid?"

"... yeah, sure," Light had replied, miffed but not surprised. He turned back to his book and added, "One and the same," while Ryuk began to laugh at the sad sap getting his tongue cut off.

It was during his grand masterwork that Light intentionally left clues behind, knowing that his one true foe would pick them up. Still, he didn't make it easy for him. Months and months passed without Light being caught: if his one worthy adversary was to catch Light, then he would make him work for it. Anything worth doing had to be done well, after all.

A swastika. An ankh. A yin-yang. A sephirot. These were the various symbols that the victims of Kira had either carved into their skin, painted with their blood, or burned into their flesh right before their heart attacks. The swastika had been found on a prominent skinhead leader, carved on his skull with a steak knife; the ankh had been discovered on a corrupt Egyptian politician who scrawled the sigil into his wood desk until his fingernails broke off; the yin-yang had been branded on an influential Korean gangster; the Sephirot had been tattooed with a rudimentary inker made out of a sharpened toothbrush on the thigh of a particularly malevolent TV preacher.

"My lord," Teru had ventured while the two burned midnight oil, per usual, "I am well aware how foolish it is for one so unworthy as I to question your wisdom, but I do not fully comprehend your tactics. Why are you allowing the _koumori_ to discern your modus operandi? Would it not be... of greater prudence to catch your nemesis off guard and then bend him to your divine will?"

"Ah, but one does not simply dominate this man, Teru," Light had replied while killing off several Russian slave drivers. "Others have tried that before and have failed utterly. His body has been broken, but he came back. His mind has been broken, but still he came back. If need be, we will destroy both his body and his mind, but this must be our last resort. For now, we rely on the one indubitable thing that we know about this man: that he is one of the world's two greatest detectives. Put a puzzle in his way, and he will inevitably solve it."

Light had then looked up from his Death Note at Teru with a glint in his eyes that his disciple didn't care much for. "And after he follows all the breadcrumbs," Light had said, "We'll release the wolves on him."

Light turned out to be correct. All the clues had led his opponent to the Kirby-Ditko Plaza, a ritzy and expensive hotel in Downtown Gotham. He had arrived there expecting to ambush Light and Teru, believing them to be occupants there.

It was in the parking garage that the first part of the battle arsenal was unleashed.

Zebediah Killgrave wasn't the most ethical of men. For over a decade he had been acting as the human mutate criminal, Purple Man, landing what jobs his mind control and healing skills could land him (which tended to be highly profitable). Still, wasn't there the potential for purity in everyone, even the wicked? Wasn't there the potential for redemption? _And what could be possibly more redeeming than __good works for God? _Light had reasoned when considering hiring him. _Besides, Teru already contacted Killgrave and proved the Death Note's powers. He's undoubtedly come to see the error of his past criminal ways, and just as I tested Job, Abraham, Jonah, and the rest of the stooges, so too will I test the mettle of this reformed delinquent. If he wants to keep his spleen, that is._

The Purple Man had been the first to attack the target: his orders were to take command of the enemy's mind via his pheromones and then command him to slit his wrists. Killgrave had doubts about his ability to insure suicide, having failed against the likes of Victor Von Doom and Matthew Murdock; and if those two were able to resist him, how could he get someone like _this _to obey him? Thus, Killgrave decided to just daze his foe for a bit and then move in for the kill with a knife he had hidden.

Unfortunately for Killgrave, the target was a Zen adept.

It didn't take too long didn't take too long before Killgrave was left semi-conscious, mumbling and rolling faintly across the floor, not even sure of where he was. Mentally, the effect was not unlike his head being smashed inside a piano over and over again.

_ That's what happens when you screw around with a superior mind, _Light had thought, amused.

From there, the black shroud handcuffed and tied Killgrave and walked up the road to the next level of the parking lot. This was the decidedly physical portion of the plan: with L's funds still in his possession, Light had hired several mercenaries and armed them. The seven mercs came equipped with pistols, carbine machine guns, AK-420's, and grenades, both shrapnel and incendiary. One had been an expert in muay thai kickboxing; one had been trained by a squad of black belt KGB agents; one was even an ex-soldier of SHIELD, trained in every form of combat from amateur wrestling to kendo, nevertheless fired after pissing Nick Fury off one too many times.

The poor schmucks never stood a chance.

In two minutes, smoke pellets were thrown to the floor, erupting with a thick, hazy miasma. The first ronin was subdued with a knee to the back of his neck. The second was disposed of with a palm thrust to his solar plexus. The third, eliminated with a judo toss into a limousine. The fourth, arguably the most unfortunate of the mercenaries, taken down with a stomp on his stomach that somehow had the impact of a canon exploding, vision blurred with electric, burning agony until kind unconsciousness spared him.

The fifth, his arm dislocated. The sixth, his face slammed into the concrete floor one inch away. The seventh, kicked in his stomach so hard that he was sure the foot would come out the other side. Even by Light's standards, it wasn't a pretty sight.

From there, the knight piece had moved up another square of the chess board. To the next lot level, to be exact. _He'll probably go for a stealth attack, knowing him_ Light had thought.

Fortunately (at least for Light), it was difficult to subdue a man like Victor Fries with stealth. Mr. Freeze, as he was commonly known to the criminal stock, was one of Gotham's most notorious masks; he was rightly notorious for his callousness, and even Light found himself slightly disturbed by Fries' lack of emotion. Still, the man had been a brilliant doctor, and his perception and shrewdness were superb. It was befitting of such an exemplary deity to grant mercy along with fairness: Fries got the same package as Killgate, nothing more, nothing less.

_ No playing favorites here _Light had reasoned. _He reforms, or I gut him like a carp._

On the next level of the parking garage, Mr. Freeze faced off against Light's mutual antagonist. For the first six minutes, everything occurred as Light had predicted it would: Fries blasting his "freeze gun" while his adversary evaded danger by running, leaping, and dodging behind pillars. Then the freeze gun had jammed, and Fries had glanced at his weapon in irritation.

Light had most of the evening planned out, most of its nuances, most of its subtler elements. What he knew but would tell no one was that even though he was God and even though he was the greatest mind on the planet, he could not know everything that would or will happen. The future consequences, negative and positive, of fortune eluded him as it eluded everybody else.

So he was pretty stunned, all things considered, when he saw a flamethrower devour Frieze.

At the time, Light had been watching the action from his laptop via the feed from the garage's security cameras. He did not know and could not know at the time that the flamethrower was nonlethal. Frieze could only survive in subzero temperatures frigid enough to kill everyone else, and so the flamethrower had been modified. The genius responsible for the adjusted weaponry had actually calibrated the temperature to simply knock Frieze into unconsciousness without inflicting serious damage or death. Light would read this all in the papers later, after his apprehension. But at that moment in time, Light waiting on the rooftop with Teru, Light believed that the one true threat to his rule may be still be neutralized without death, that there was still reason to be optimistic and to believe they could all survive this. He was thrilled and terrified all at once.

The last phase of the assault had taken place on the roof itself. The knight arrived at the top via the stairs, and once there calmly surveyed his surroundings. Light had anticipated that in a few moments, his opponent would switch on his infrared vision, making it that much easier for him to find them. No need to keep him waiting then.

If Teru had needed to, he would have switched on his reaper vision and seen the detective's true name and lifespan. Instead, Mikami stepped out from the shadows of a large vent; decked out in a black shirt, shirt and hoodie, he was able to take his opponent by surprise. However, that was about as far as Teru got. His efforts weren't bad: Teru moved with an impressive sense of speed eerily incongruent with his large size, and his display of roundhouse kicks, karate chops, and arm drags were decidedly impressive. Still, not bad wasn't good enough for their target, and Light, waiting behind a behind a concrete staircase, thought that the scene was similar to a match between Jason Statham and Jet Li (_Sorry, Jason _Light had thought. _You may be one tough hombre, but Jet is a walking tank._).

After waiting few more moments, Light had emerged and flanked the whirling shadow from the left, throwing street boxing punches with less power than Teru but with more speed. Soon, the shade had found himself facing both Mikami's thunderous kicks and Light's rapid punches.

As Light had predicted earlier, they never stood a chance in a straight up fight.

The shade had been holding back the entire time: while defending himself, he had been studying his enemies, something that took him only a few minutes. Light was aware that his antagonist would react this way, and not even the sensation of a dropkick to his chest was enough to dampen his pride in knowing that he had been right. That feeling continued while Light sprawled into the coarse gravel of the roof. It continued while he tried to shake the cobwebs from his head. It continued even when he saw the knight nearly take off Teru's head with a brutal clothesline.

Truthfully, that feeling of pride, of knowing that he had been right about everything up to now, began to subside when he saw his foe lift up Teru. By the time the detective had taken a page out of professional wrestling and power bombed Teru off of the building, the feeling of pride had utterly been negated. Moreover, the feeling of pride had been supplanted with one of urgency while watching Teru fall twenty feet through the glass ceiling of the bank below.

It was after observing a large oak desk break Teru's fall that Light decided it would be wisest to start fleeing for his mortal life. _Thank Kira I had enough foresight to take those parkour lessons _Light had thought, running and leaping from one building to the next, intending to make his way to the street below. It was a cute joke at best, something cooked up quickly in order to appease Light's burgeoning sense of dread (and it failed to do even that). Still, if he was going to beat his enemy on his own turf, then he had to know the lay out of the land. Leaping from one end of the city allowed him to study Gotham with a thoroughness not even its most seasoned citizen could claim to possess. Moreover, the parkour was nothing fancy: he didn't do it for an audience, and he didn't practice it just to get laid. He studied it only for practical uses like running away from a certain hellhound, and so that's how it came out looking.

Light never looked back during his chase with the black ghost hot on his tail, not even when he landed on the street below. There was no need; if he had looked back, he would have just wasted time, precious time that he needed to make his masterpiece function. _And I a might have seen something that... could've thrown me off _he reluctantly admitted while he moved a sewer manhole aside. _The greater the risk, the greater the victory. Never forget that, Yagami._

And so now here he was, running through the muck and the mire of this industrial hellhole, the scent of anatomical unmentionables burning his nose like gasoline poured into his nostrils. _Not too much longer now _Light thought _Eventually I'll hit the end, and once I do then I can-_

Light turned a corner, then skidded to an abrupt halt, arms pinwheeling for balance. Light had almost stepped off the end of the pipe, a fall somewhere in the range of forty to fifty feet into a swift current of filth below. The rest of the sewers stood exposed like the stomach of a granite leviathan, pipes installed here and there amidst the suffocating blackness like so many arteries. It was only because of the sparse lighting of several red light bulbs that Light was able to see a catwalk across the chasm, let alone see at all.

"I have you now, Yagami," something hissed behind him.

Light turned around, slowly and gradually, heart pounding within a rib cage that suddenly seemed far too frail. He could hear and feel his body act like unoiled machinery, scraping and grinding loudly as the gears turned. Sweat began to drip off of him like bullets from an uzi.

6'2". 220 pounds. A body as black as starless night. Eyes white with controlled rage. What stood before Light Yagami was something both monster and god, a majority of his body enveloped in the flesh of a fallen angel with only three small holes on his mask to reveal the dark beauty within.

Batman was even more perfect than Light could have wished for.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't be beating your skull in right now, Yagami" Batman growled at Light. "Because right now, after everything you've put everyone through, knocking you into a coma has become very tempting."

Light held his hands up, a nervous smile on his face as if to say _Hey, c'mon bud, let's not get carried away here. _He chuckled weakly, hating himself a little for being unable to disguise all of his fear. "Alright, _Koumori, _alright. You've got me, OK? You've got me. Swear not to beat the crap out of me, and I promise not to screw you over. That reasonable enough?"

Batman stiffened, then loosened up a bit. _Impressive _Light thought _The man was ambushed only a few hours ago yet he still has the discipline needed to calm himself down. Not many can do that. _Batman was obviously angry but not yet irate. It was difficult to make a yogi that upset even if you were responsible for the deaths of millions (_But mostly criminals _Light reasoned). These types of sages could keep their cool even during the most egregious of genocides (_Not that what I'm doing could be considered genocide _Light noted).

Batman produced a pair of handcuffs. "Good call," he said, "If you really mean what you say, then put your hands behind your back. Because if I even suspect that you're planning to somehow escape, I'll bash your head in against the pipes. Do not test me, Yagami: you've made my life very difficult this past year, and I'm not disinclined to take my frustrations out on you. Breaking your thumbs wouldn't exactly grieve me."

"Oh, the things I do for love," Light responded sardonically, raising an eyebrow. Nonetheless, he obeyed and turned around with his hands behind his back. Batman approached him and snapped the cuffs into place. "But in all fairness, you should probably realize that you're doing me a favor."

"Is that so?" Batman asked. He didn't sound convinced.

"It is," Light replied, turning back around. "See, it doesn't matter what prison you send me to. I'll get out; I always find a way out. And putting Kira in a den of thieves, murderers, and rapists, a majority being high school drop outs that I could easily convince to hang themselves? That's like putting Yahweh in Sodom or Babylon. So, quite frankly, you could say that all your efforts have been for nothing."

"Wow, and Ryuzaki said that you didn't like to talk," Batman replied in perfect Japanese. He felt tempted to grin as Light's face temporarily whitened and his eyes widened oh so subtly. L was still a sore spot then. "You're finished, Yagami. Do us all a favor and face your loss with dignity."

Light sighed, then composed himself. "All business and no play, are we?" he asked. "Reasoning with you is like banging my head against the wall."

"Get moving," Batman said. His voice didn't change.

"But let me drop a word to the wise," Light said as if he hadn't heard the order. A grimace grew on his face and a malicious light incepted within his eyes. There was evil in Light Yagami, there was something brutal and acidic that he could control well and drink from like a wellspring. And as handsome as the mask was that Light fooled the world with, Kira was just as ugly. "You've begun something here that you can't possibly hope to survive. I've already set my sights on Gotham, and what I want, I get. And once Gotham is mine, the rest of the world will follow."

"Then I'll just have to bring you down again, won't I?" Batman responded. He turned Light around roughly and shoved him forward. "Get a move on and no more than ten meters between us. You try to run, and you get a batarang in the back. If you're lucky, that is."

"An intriguing proposition," Light said. A metallic _clink _reverberated across the sewers, and Light whirled around again, his hands free of the handcuffs, one hand brandishing a black revolver. Smirking, he used his other hand to tap his cheek with his forefinger. "Unfortunately, I think it's a wee bit inferior to mine. And since I was the one with enough foresight to hide a steel pick in my mouth this entire time, I do believe I'm in a position to assert my genius. So why don't you-"

With one quick swipe of his hand, Batman struck the revolver sideways. The cylinder leaped out of the revolver upon impact, landing in the sewer water with no more than a small _kaplink_.

Light stood staring at his now useless-weapon almost dumbly, as if he his mind was lagging at comprehending what just happened. "Oh, you son of a-" he began.

The sudden and forceful sensation of a combat boot colliding right under Light's chin interrupted his remark. If Light had believed in an interventionist god, he would have thanked it for preventing him from biting off his tongue when his teeth snapped together. His vision faded, became lighter, like DMT being released into his brain. Time slowed down, came to a still, and at that precise moment all he could focus on was the solid object smashing into his head. Thus, he was never quite sure if Batman actually screamed "WATAH!" while executing his jeet kune do kick.

Light Yagami lost consciousness and crashed into the sewer water without so much as a protest.

Batman gradually brought his leg down and stared at Yagami's prone body. Yagami was in good shape, but a kick like that could knock out a polar bear. Batman still had time to complete his investigation.

Batman pressed a small, thin button encased in leather and plastic on the side of his neck. It made a small _boop _ sound, and then the hiss and the crackle of his own private airway filled his ears. "Oracle," he said. "The mission is complete. Stand by for details."

"Bruce?" Barbara Gordon exclaimed with both anger and relief, the sensation of a parent wanting to both hug and strangle her child once she found him. "Bruce, I've been trying to contact you for over an hour! What happened? Are you ok? Everyone lost track of you after the attack at the hotel!"

"Everything's fine, Barbara," Batman said. He intentionally referred to her this time by her first name, even though he usually called her by her operational title while on the job. He was well aware that the others saw him as an obstinately cold man who made others worry, and he knew that there was some truth to that. Guilt had bitten at him the entire evening like a pebble in his shoe. Hopefully, he could make it up to the others without them asking too many questions. The last thing that he wanted was another intervention like after Bruce Wayne was framed for murder.

_ No, the last thing you want is to apologize _Batman told himself.

"Dad and his team are already on their way," Barbara said. Her voice became gentler, more earnest. "But Bruce... you are OK, aren't you? I know that Yagami isn't exactly on the B-list-"

"Everything''s fine, Oracle," Batman interrupted. It always irritated him when people worried about him. "I have only minor injuries. If anyone needs medical attention, its Yagami and Mikami."

"Yes, I saw the feed from the news helicopter," Barbara said. Batman could tell from the tone alone that she was rolling her eyes. "Mind you, the focus was unclear, but it looked like someone big and black picking up Mikami and then tossing him off the building. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Bruce?"

"Maybe," Batman said. He bit back a grin.

Barbara sighed. "Bruce, next time could you at least call me after you pull a dangerous stunt like that? Lord knows that just about nothing can kill you, but we all get worried from time to time- even Damian cares."

"Alright, Mom," Batman said, a little annoyed. Why was Oracle talking like the mission wasn't a success?

A pregnant pause filled the airwaves. "Did you... did you just make a joke?" Barbara asked. She sounded positively stupefied.

"It's been a long night," Batman said. If Light was conscious, he would have probably noticed a dangerous gleam flash across his foe's demon white eyes. "But it's not over yet. Not by a long shot. I'll talk with you later, Barbara."

"Don't assault-" Barbara began.

Batman cut off the com link. The night wasn't over yet; procedure still needed to be fulfilled. He walked over to Light's body and crouched down onto one knee.

Batman patted down Light's chest, looking for any hidden trump cards. It didn't take him long to find something large and flat in the spacious inner pocket of the suit.

_ Feels like a book _he thought. He pulled it out.

It was a Death Note.

_ So L was right _Batman thought. _This is the secret to Kira's power._

Light groaned. Batman glanced at him, then looked back at the book. He opened it, skimmed the rules on the back of the first page, then skimmed through the rest of the pages. Nearly every single page was filled with names, the two predominant languages in the book being English and Japanese. The handwritings varied, meaning Teru or someone else had their hand in the murders too. Batman felt his stomach tighten in disgust.

Still, his name wasn't there. No "Bruce Wayne". According to L, all Kira needed to do to kill was to write down the name of the intended victim and then mentally visualize them. However, there was no evidence to support the idea that Kira knew who he really was. He couldn't assume that Yagami didn't know his true identity (_I don't even want to consider what he does know _he thought with a grimace somehow even more morbid than usual), but even if he did, no one would take him seriously if he claimed that Bruce Wayne was Batman. Only recently had Bruce, in his philanthropist persona, half-lied and half told the truth to the public by claiming to be a principal funder of Batman. Now no one could prove the true link between Wayne and Batman (_At least for now, anyways... _he thought, not thoroughly convinced.)

Still, something was off: the name "Batman" wasn't there. True, it wouldn't have killed him: Yagami would've needed to write down his first and last name if he wanted the Death Note to work, and even then he would've needed to visualize Bruce Wayne's face. However, if Yagami really was as scared of Batman as he seemed to be (_Or pretended to be? _Batman wondered), then panic could have circumvented his reasoning prowess, and then, in an act of desperation, he could have simply written down "Batman" and then visualized the mask.

_ But he didn't _Batman thought. _And why not? He had nothing to lose at that point. He must have known that I wasn't going to kill him. Everyone knows that Batman doesn't murder._

Batman thought for a few more moments: he was close to a new thought, and his intuition told him that it would be wise to pay attention to it. He stared at Yagami, unwittingly curling his nose. The stream of the sewer ebbed and flowed lightly. Rats squeaked to one another but kept their distance from the tall, dark predator.

_ Does he... does he want to keep me alive? _Batman thought.

The thought of someone actually wanting you alive rather than dead tends to comfort most people. Batman wasn't most people. A small, dense pit began to throb in the center of his stomach.

_ I'll figure this out later _he thought, tearing himself away from his reverie. He began to fold the Death Note with the intention of placing it in one of his utility belt's pockets. _Untangling all of Kira's data is going to take some time, and dealing with this book isn't going to be easy. Maybe I can get Clark to-_

He stopped abruptly and stared at the book. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Kira could be stopped right here and right now. The murders could end. Humanity could be saved. And all he had to do was-

The pearls.

The glinting silver of the gun.

His father's gasp.

His mother's scream.

His first death.

_ NO! _he snapped at himself. _That is NEVER an option, and you know it! Do not even CONSIDER it! The moment you use that thing is the moment you become just as bad as him!_

_ You shot Darkseid _he reminded himself. _You shot him with a radion bullet, fully intending to kill him._

_ That was different _Batman insisted. _All of existence was at stake. It was the best choice that I could have made. Anything else would have allowed Darkseid to win._

_ So what makes Yagami any different from the other conqueror? _Batman asked himself.

No answer was given to this.

If Batman didn't have his mask on, he would've run a hand through his hair in frustration. How was he going to solve all this? How was he going to both keep this horrible weapon out of the hands of man and subdue one of the greatest detectives on the planet?

_ A jug fills drop by drop _he thought, trying to reassure himself (it worked a little). He placed the folded Death Note in a pocket and began to frisk Light again. _For now, just focus on the present. We'll cross all the other bridges later when we have to. Right now, I need to find that second Death Note, and then-_

Batman's hands stopped, then wavered tensely in the air. He frisked Light again, this time with more force and speed.

The second Death Note wasn't there.

Fear gripped Batman's throat like a steel vice. If the second book wasn't on Kira, then it could be anywhere. Knowing Yagami, it's absence was probably intentional: wherever it was, he surely had a plan for it. Even caught, Yagami still held power over the world.

_ How much longer do I have to put up with your kind? _Batman thought, glaring at Light's body; he resisted the urge to stomp his face until he no longer had one. _You and the rest of the scum will never let me be, will you? How much more of this damn tragedy do I have to endure before-_

The sound of rapid footsteps far off interrupted his reverie. The police, undoubtedly. Batman turned to go: Gotham's finest could handle Yagami, at least for now. Meanwhile, he had research to conduct: he would check in on Yagami shortly.

_ It's over, isn't it? _Batman asked himself, walking towards the end of the tunnel. He took out his grappling hook gun and shot it towards the ceiling where it hooked itself to the railing of a catwalk up above. Then he was sailing upwards and onwards, the air blowing against his sweaty face, praying for that sense of liberation that only the night could grant him. _I caught Kira, didn't I? I won. This has to be the end, doesn't it?_

Batman landed on the catwalk and began to climb a nearby steel ladder out of the belly of Gotham, back into the heart of the beast.

_ I don't think that this is over _his intuition told him _In fact, I think that this war has just begun._

* * *

><p>Commissioner Jim Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department stood in the small, cramped kitchen of the police headquarters and poured what he considered to be a rather deplorable brand of coffee into his mug. <em>Who bought this crap? And who made it? Bullock? <em>Jim thought. He took a sip and grimaced slightly. It tasted like he felt: weak and bitter. Still, even if it tasted like something that came out of the rear of a baboon, he would drink it just like all the other countless cups of coffee he had consumed that year. Quality was irrelevant, at least for now; caffeine was crucial if he wanted to retain his sanity. Per Barbara's advice, he had tried to switch to green and black tea, which he still drank regularly, but he ultimately discovered that coffee, as ridiculously caffeinated as it was, gave him that extra step he needed. Needed to endure Gotham. Needed to endure murder. Needed to endure the murderers.

Murderers like Light Yagami.

Gordon rubbed his forehead with one hand, closed his eyes, and sighed. Yagami. God, he didn't even want to think about that can of worms now. It was exhausting enough working the Kira case even with Batman and the rest of his allies; not only had Yagami's modus operandi been nearly impossible to discern, but his actions incepted the kinds of emotions he considered too dangerous for an officer of the law to possess.

_ And he's just a kid, _Jim thought. _He's only twenty six years old and already he's responsible for one the worst genocides in modern history. Christ, what a world. A world where someone as talented and brilliant as Yagami becomes man's worst enemy when he could be our greatest humanist. It's as cruelly ironic as my own son-_

Gordon wrinkled his nose angrily and placed the pot of coffee down on the counter with more force than he should have. No, he couldn't start thinking about James again: it would only distract him from the present, and ignoring Light Yagami was about as smart as ignoring a rattlesnake.

_ Can't help but think that you were spared, Soichiro _Jim thought with a level of resentment he instantly knew to be unjustified. He couldn't help the way he felt though. _You got to die believing that your son was innocent, not some sadistic freak. Me, I get the dubious pleasure of living with said fact. For your sake, I hope there's no afterlife._

Jim sighed again, and if he could have seen his face, he would have seen it sag. He was angry but more than that he was tired, and that was making him more irritable than he tended to be. Getting him to think things he knew were neither fair nor true too. He cast a weary eye on the refrigerator, an old, blandly white relic. Amidst several magnets, one caught his attention. It showed a man grinning wildly while gripping prison bars, and beneath that, in big, bold, capital letters it read YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO WORK HERE, BUT IT SURE HELPS!

"You have no idea," Gordon muttered.

"Please tell me that's not decaf," a harsh voice said immediately behind Gordon.

A solid lump formed in Jim's throat, and his heart beat like he was running a marathon. He whirled around with an impressive sense of agility for a man his age, his hand moving for his pistol.

"Take it easy, there 'Shane'," Batman said, facing the coffee table.

Jim stared at Batman, a look of mild incredulity stretched across his worn, grizzled features. He wanted to chew out Batman enough for his lack of tact, but the the immediate situation was a rare one. "I think this might be the first time I've ever heard you make reference to pop culture," he said, after a moment.

"I saw the movie when I was younger," Batman said. He moved over to the coffee table, and began to fill it a mug with the coffee pot. "Something about protecting a town and its people appealed to me, apparently."

Jim eyed Batman warily as he poured the dry creamer into his coffee. "I had eight officers stationed at the front of the department..."

"Old ninja tricks die hard," Batman said. He blew the steam emanating from his drink away and then took a sip. "Last time I checked, the only experience cops have with ninjitsu and stealth was Metal Solid Gear, maybe."

"Metal Gear Solid," Jim corrected him.

Batman gave Jim a funny look.

"Barbara left her games out," Jim said. "I had insomnia. And it kept me going all night. No wonder kids spend hours with those things."

"How's Mikami doing?" Batman asked, changing the subject. Both Dick and Tim had played those games and compared him to Solid Snake, something that irked him: there was no way he would ever sport a mullet.

Jim sighed, paced one hand on his hip and ran the other through his gray, thinning hair. "He'll be fine," he said. "Actually, its the damnedest thing: Mikami's body is healing at an extraordinary rate, according to the doctors. He has two broken ribs, a bruised sternum, and several concussions to work through, but even without being a superhuman the doctors are amazed with his progress. At this point, they're confident that he's some sort of adept or another, one of those people who can adapt and learn new things at remarkable speeds. Not quite as great as having a ring from outer space or a 600 pound hammer, I suppose, but it's still something, I suppose."

"Is he still stark raving mad?" Batman asked.

Jim sighed: "Oh my god, you have no idea. The moment he wakes up, he demands to know where Yagami is. Then, after he's told that his boss is fine, he starts screaming about the wrath of Ra and the fulfillment of the Dead Sea Scrolls or something crazy like that. They had to inject him with enough sedatives to bring down a rhino or else he would have redamaged his injuries."

"All's well that ends well then," Batman said.

"Sadly, that's not the case," Jim said. "Mikami used to be a lawyer, and a damn good one at that. I can't see him getting out of some hard time, but he'll probably be able to stall the court for a while."

"He'll get life," Batman said.

"I hope so," Jim said. "I wouldn't say I'm an optimist, but in this case I don't think there are too many people who deserve life in the pen as opposed to all the people who don't deserve that. But, Mikami... that man's a different case, all right. A bright, glaring case."

Batman took a sip of his coffee. "Mikami without Yagami is like a puddle of lighter fluid without a match," he said. "Mikami is intelligent, but on his own we can contain him.. With Yagami..." his voice trailed off and he craned his neck towards the direction of the adjacent hallway.

"Ready to wander through the Freak House, huh?" Gordon asked. "C'mon, Yagami's being held in interrogation."

"You did tell your officers not to bring any weapons near Yagami, firearm or not, right?" Batman asked. Gordon thought that he sounded a little anxious, a rarity in itself, but decided not to press the issue.

"Yeah, I received your call," Gordon said. "Don't worry: Ennis may be a hot-headed Irish boy, but he's far from insubordinate. Yagami won't be able to screw him over."

Gordon and Batman walked down the hall and into another room. The room that they walked into was bare except for a few chairs and a one way mirror separating one half the room for another. On the other side of the mirror was a pale but seemingly fit white officer yelling at Light, occasionally slapping the desk or pointing a finger close to his face. Light was being chewed out in the interrogation chamber, but he didn't seem particularly nonplussed about the state of affairs. He looked bored, even. Occasionally, he would stare at his nails, as if idle and not in hot water.

"God, would you look at him?" Jim said. "He's a kid, what, maybe twenty four, twenty five? Still so young, and yet he's done more harm to mankind than most people do their entire lives. It's so hard for me to believe that someone like this can be Kira. How can someone that intelligent and promising possess such hatred?"

"You'd be surprised," Batman said. His voice was almost terse.

"Come again?" Jim replied, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

"Lucifer was said to be God's greatest creation," Batman said. "Perfect in all ways but his rebelliousness and his inclination for power. It's almost funny: Yagami has such contempt for authority, and yet he'll stop at nothing to achieve it and lord it over everyone. His disdain for people must be immense."

"Well, now he won't be able to lord anything over any one ever again," Gordon said. "At this point, the FBI has to come in. Maybe Homeland Security. Knowing you, you'll probably manage to get yourself some face time with Yagami, but-"

"There's no need to call the FBI," Batman responded. "And I would prefer it if you told no one outside your department about this."

Gordon narrowed his eyes. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.

"Several things," Batman said. "First, what will the reaction be to the truth? That Light Yagami is indeed Kira? That this handsome young man is responsible for the deaths of over a million, all in the name of God? Yagami isn't like one of our masked criminals, Jim: he's not loud, he's not flashy, and he's not overt. We're not talking about Scarface or Riddler or Hatter; we're talking about someone who prefers to have his identity kept secret."

"Please tell me that you're not actually proposing what I think you're proposing," Gordon said. He looked faintly incredulous, almost astounded, like he was seeing a side of his friend that he had rarely seen before. "Are you telling me that you want to cover up the fact that Light Yagami is Kira? From the rest of the world? Have you lost your mind?"

"God is said to be perfect," Batman said. "People take one look at Yagami, and they'll be convinced that he's their new messiah. He'll put on his show, convince them that he's wise and merciful, and convert some. Maybe most. It's hard to say for certain. But violence would undoubtedly break out between pro Kira and anti Kira factions, maybe even wars. The world has been enduring a very pensive situation for the past few years: what I don't want is for this to be the thing that lights the fuse. Yagami doesn't want to be revealed unless he has to, but he must know that either way, hidden or exposed, it's all a win-win for him."

"Oh God...," Gordon sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? What about due process? We can't deny him a trial."

"Yes we can," Batman said. "I have pull with the government, both state and federal. I'll have to pull a few strings, but under the Patriot Act, Yagami can be designated as a terrorist and then be imprisoned indefinitely without access to the media or a trial."

"That doesn't sound ethical," Jim noted.

"It's better than the alternative," Batman said. "Yagami is daring us to enact the standard procedure of revealing the criminal's identity. It's his trump card. He probably already has a series of strategies and tactics already written up for that, knowing him."

"Are you aware of what you're saying?" Jim asked Batman. "This isn't just Gotham's problem; this is everyone's problem. The magnitude of all of this affects everyone. Are you really willing to make this choice, knowing that you'll deceive everyone to protect them?"

Batman paused. "I am," he said. "I've thought about this for a long time now. I sincerely believe that this the best decision that we can make."

Jim studied his partner for a moment quietly. "Alright, then I'm with you," he said. He turned to look back at Yagami, now casually dipping a tea bag in and out of a steaming cup. Ennis did not look amused. "So where do we hold him? The man's a genius. We'd need maximum security, at the very least. Maybe constant surveillance."

"That's not enough by far," Batman said. "Based on my calculations, there's a ninety five percent chance that Yagami could start a riot, conquer the facility, or flee from incarceration in as little as two weeks."

"For how many prisons?" Jim asked.

"Most of them," Batman said.

"Blackgate?" Jim asked.

"Especially Blackgate," Batman replied.

"Can't blame me for trying," Jim said. "How about Rykers?"

"He'd escape," Batman said.

Gordon thought for a moment. "Phantom Zone?" he asked with some hope.

Batman just stared at Jim in response.

"... Jesus Christ," Jim muttered. He took out a napkin from his trench coat and wiped the sweat off of his face.

"Can't help but think that He would be disgusted by this man," Batman replied. There was no humor in his voice.

Jim thought for a moment. "He's not a bad looking kid," he said tentatively. "Neither is Mikami. You're not afraid, that, ah-"

"No," Batman interrupted. "I'm not. Remember the recent East Side murders?"

"How can I forget?" Gordon muttered.

"It took me a while, but I solved them," Batman said. "I would have told you earlier, but Yagami kept me busy. Turns out it was Yagami and Mikami. They were the killers. They were the ones that terrorized that ghetto."

Gordon looked confused. "I don't get it," he said. "We know that Kira kills without physically touching his victims, that he murders them from a distance. So why would he commit murders that were called for close, physical encounters?"

"Because this is Gotham," Batman said. "Tokyo has it's dark side like any other major city, but when it comes to Gotham it doesn't even compare. Yagami must have known that. Then you take a look at the victims: the homeless, crack addicts, low level pimps, impoverished prostitutes. The bottom of society's chain. Divorce compassion from logic and you realize that no one would really care about their deaths. And in Kira's excessively utilitarian mindset, if they drain society and don't contribute to it then there's no reason to keep them alive. He might have even thought that he was doing them a favor, in his own malicious way. Then the weapons: ropes, knives, shards of glass, baseball bats, even plastic bags for strangulation. They weren't content to simply shoot their victims and be done with it. They wanted to engage in long, drawn out encounters."

"I must be losing my mind," Gordon said, looking revolted, "Because I think I'm beginning to understand this guy's reasoning. He knew that he had to toughen up to survive in Gotham, didn't he? So he decided to start getting a feel for the rush of killing in the grimiest, most brutal ways that he could. He knew that if all he could do was murder from a distance that he wouldn't be able to keep up with the big dogs. After all, how can you take over a town controlled by the Joker when you're squeamish about bloodshed? And then the prison bit: if Yagami did have to go to prison, a guy like him would have to kill to survive, just like any other dog being thrown into a pit. And in the pen, all things go. Good God, this kid really does like to keep all his bases loaded."

"Now you really know the kind of monster we're dealing with," Batman concurred, nodding his head.

"You already know how we're going to do this, aren't you?" Jim asked wryly. He wondered if he was beginning to take his friend's genius for granted.

"We don't say that Yagami was Kira," Batman replied. He didn't seem particularly horrified by the thought of lying to the entire world. "What we'll say is that Yagami believes himself to be Kira but that he's really just a deluded serial killer. Considering that he associates himself with a legitimately insane man who considers himself to be an angel of death, it shouldn't be too hard to pull off.

"Right, who needs Stephen King when we have all of Mikami's journals in evidence?" Jim said. "But you still haven't answered the million dollar question: If Yagami can control or escape any prison, then where exactly are we supposed to put him?"

"Light Yagami is a monster," Batman replied, "so we're going to put him in the one and only place that can successfully hold monsters."

"What? What are you saying? Where can we-" Jim began. He stopped speaking abruptly, and his eyes opened wide with shock. "You can't be serious! Not that place! They'll eat him alive!"

"You're underestimating him again," Batman said.

"He's just a boy!" Jim snapped. Even while defending Light, a part of him was nonplussed that he was doing so. "Putting him in there would be just like signing his death warrant! Are you deliberately trying to kill him?"

"Jim, Yagami isn't James," Batman said, now staring directly at the man he considered to be an older brother and a father figure. "I'm sorry that I have to be so blunt, but I can tell that he reminds you of your son. And call me unrealistic if you want... but I don't think Yagami's entirely lost. I think that there might be some good left in him. I might sound like Superman right now, but it's difficult for me to believe that anyone, even the Devil himself, is beyond redemption. At least this way, I can keep my eye on him. Maybe I can even rehabilitate him. In a world of flying men, space gods, and alien goddesses, is it really so much to hope that someone with such potential will come to see the errors of his ways?"

Batman expected Jim to come up with some sort of angry, indignant remark: he was aware that saying that Kira could redeem himself was akin to saying that Hitler could atone for the millions of deaths he was responsible for. Not an idea most people would embrace. However, Jim instead stared at the detective with a bit of controlled awe.

"What?" Batman asked, a bit testy.

"You've changed," Jim said. "When I first met you, you were so angry I thought you might try to punch out Galactus. But now, you seem, I don't know... calmer. Wiser, even. Years ago, I would've had to stop you from choking someone like Yagami to death. Now you're talking like you're giving a Sermon on the Mount. I'm not sure whether I'm shocked or impressed."

Batman hesitated. "I'm getting older, Jim," he said finally. "I'm learning more and more that hatred isn't a gift: it's a burden. And I can't keep going on the way I have, simply knocking the hell out of everyone I hate. I don't want revenge anymore. I don't even want to destroy me enemies anymore. All I want... all I want is peace now. Because if my father taught me one thing, Jim, it's that all life is precious. Even the life of a person like Light Yagami."

Batman's voice trailed off; he noticed that Jim was no longer looking at him but at the one way mirror, and with horror to boot. Batman turned his head in the same direction and instantly understood why Jim looked so horrified.

Detective Ennis stood, his back to Jim and Batman, with his pistol pointed at his head.

"No-" Jim began.

Detective Ennis pulled the trigger and blew his own brains out.

For a few moments, there was only silence, a silence so deep and so heavy that Batman was sure it would suffocate him. Gordon was the first to break it.

"ENNIS, NO!" Jim screamed. "CHRIST IN HEAVEN, NO!"

Batman and Jim barged through the adjacent door and burst into the interrogation room. Ennis' body lied on the floor, his head mangled, his corpse surrounded by a pool of blood. Light continued to check his nails in a manner suggesting that he was waiting for something more interesting to happen.

"YOU GODDAMN FREAK!" Gordon shouted at him, the veins on his forehead and neck bulging. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?"

Light deigned to raise his eyes from his nails. "Commissioner Gordon, please," he said, as if addressing a tantrum prone child. "The only reason that Detective Ennis killed himself was because I deduced that he was a closet homosexual and then convinced him that everyone he loved would ostracize him once they found out. You act like that's a bad thing!"

"OFFICERS!" Jim screamed. "OFFICERS, GET IN HERE NOW!"

The four officers arrived in a short amount of time. Morrison, the Scottish immigrant with no hair and a bemused look; Hernandez, a rotund but strong looking man with a salt and pepper goatee; Ellis with his unusual but customary long hair and shaggy beard; and Otomo, a recent transfer from Star City who came recommended by Oliver Queen, of all people.

"Funny, I don't recall ordering bacon with my meal," Light smirked.

"Jesus Wept!" Officer Ellis exclaimed. "What the hell happened here?"

"He happened," Jim said, pointing a finger at Light. "Get him to his cell and do not engage him in any way, shape, or form!"

"I say that we beat the bleedin' hell out of him here and now," Officer Morrison growled, reaching for his baton. "Anyone able to wreck this kind of damage should-"

"Don't test me, Morrison!" Jim snapped at his fellow officers. They were strong, competent, and capable men, but they flinched regardless. Gordon was a disciplined man, but he could get nasty if he wanted to. "Just do your job, and I promise we'll be able to reimburse this bastard in full."

"Let's go, kid," Officer Otomo said, unlocking Light's handcuffs and then locking them again behind his back. "I suggest you take advantage of this rare opportunity and keep your trap shut."

"Oh, so rough, boys!" Light laughed, undaunted. "What, having trouble with the wives downstairs?"

"Guy, you'd better shut the hell up if you want to keep all your teeth," Officer Hernandez warned Light.

"I stand corrected!" Light laughed again. 'Looks like only three of you boys are into the fairer sex!"

Officer Hernandez raised the back of his hand, ostensibly to strike Light. Batman, up until now willing to let Gordon do things his way, prepared to intervene: there was something in Yagami's eyes that he didn't like, something that told him that he was preparing to sever the hand the moment it reached his mouth.

Batman and Hernandez were interrupted by Gordon. "NO!" he bellowed, as sharp as a cracking whip. The officers flinched, Otomo jumped a little, and Light stared at the commissioner as if for the first time, more intrigued than he was amused. "That's exactly what he wants! Do not touch him, do not look at him, do not even speak to him! You just get him into his cell and nothing else! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

The officers stared at each other for several seconds, stupefied. Eventually, Officer Otomo shoved Light forward. "Get moving, jackass," he growled. "And thank God the commissioner decided to spare you."

"And I'm so generous that I'll probably end up returning the favor," Light smirked, moving forward, the officers watching him like hawks. He came closer to Gordon and stared him right in his eyes. "Fair warning, Commissioner," he said. "I don't want to kill you, but I will if it comes down to that. We may have our differences, but you could still prove yourself to be a valuable ally. And against me, you don't stand a chance. Take it into consideration at the very least."

Gordon stared at Light with murder in his eyes. "You get out of this room while you still can," he seethed.

Light continued to smirk, undaunted by Gordon's restrained fury, and turned towards Batman. It was only when facing his fellow detective that he dropped his grin; his mouth and eyes lost all traces of humor, of warmth, of humanity.

"Not like the first time we met, huh, Bats?" Light asked.

For a brief moment, Batman's scowl became marked not just by anger but by pain and regret. Gordon, almost hysterical, failed to notice it; likewise, the haunted expression on the detective's face arose and disassembled too quickly for the officers to notice. Only Light, with his razor sharp perception, was able to detect it.

Light's smirk fell.

Their eyesight connected to one another's perfectly. It was an intimacy only the greatest of brothers and the worst of enemies could achieve.

For that single moment, Light Yagami and Bruce Wayne truly knew one another.

"You're right," Batman said. "It isn't."

The staring could have gone on for seconds, minutes, maybe even hours. Neither man would budge, and neither man could budge. They stared at each other, two men of mysteries and of secrets, looked at each other hard enough as if they could see each other's thoughts, dreams, souls.

But then Ellis and Otomo grabbed Light by his shoulders. "Move it, you little bastard," Officer Ellis growled, beginning to remove Light from the room.

Light's grin returned, as malevolent and sly as ever. "See you later, Koumori", he said to Batman before leaving the room with the rest of the officers.

Gordon slumped in a nearby chair, the beginning of a small amount of tears forming in his eyes. Getting Gordon to cry was about as easy as getting a camel through the eye of a needle: the only time Batman had seen his friend weep was when his ex-wife had been murdered and his son had been institutionalized. In a sick, demented sort of way, Light was one of the few skilled enough to make such a strong man vulnerable.

Batman took his cape and placed it over Ennis' corpse. He wasn't able to cover up all the blood, but it was better than nothing.

"Jim... I'm sorry" Batman said. He felt stupid for saying something so casual in response to such a terrible situation, but he didn't know what else he could say.

"I knew Ennis for years," Gordon said, staring at the cape and the body under it, as if he hadn't just heard his friend. He looked absolutely drained, maybe on the edge of a nervous breakdown. "I knew him when he first started out. He was my friend. We drank together, played poker together. I even ate dinner with him at his parents' house. Oh, oh God, his mother and father... How am I going to break this to them?"

"This is only a sample of what Yagami is capable of," Batman said. "You know what we have to do."

Gordon put his hands on his face and kept them there for a few moments. For a while, Batman worried that Gordon might have finally snapped. But then Jim's hands fell from his head, and his eyes clearly showed fire, not a flaming fire of madness, but a controlled fire of logic, of knowing what cruelty needed to be performed.

"You're right," said Gordon, now staring directly at Batman. "This can't go on. I won't let it go on. It's time we sent the Devil back to Hell. It's time we sent him back home."

"It's time we send Kira to Arkham."

* * *

><p><em>NEXT TIME ON THE LIGHT IN THE ABYSS! What do Light and Batman know about each other, and what is their history? Will Light and Mikami survive Arkham Asylum? Will Batman be able to keep the secret of Kira from the world? Can the author successfully fill up all the plot holes without hanging himself? How is the late L connected to Batman? And where does Bruce figure in Light's plans for world domination? The answers to these questions may be answered in future chapters, if readers post reviews and indicate that they give a crap! Maybe. Probably. I don't know. I need pot. Tune in next time, same Bat time, same Bat fanfic!<em>

Meanwhile, here's some cool Batman/Death Note stuff I found while writing this story. And, hey, maybe if people get excited about the potential for this crossover, we can get DC to work with Madhouse or Viz!

AWESOME: ./asset/0368/1296_

… maybe a slumber party? .com/art/Batman-vs-Death-Note-189541753

Misa: Harley Quinn's long lost sister?

.com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=batman+death+note#/d3ghsad

The Death Joke: Nice! .com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=batman+death+note#/d3j4jr0


	3. Killing Is My Business

**CHAPTER III:**

**KILLING IS MY BUSINESS**

**(AND BUSINESS IS GOOD)**

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

-John 1:9

One compromises by conquering.

-Friedrich Nietzsche, _Twilight of the Idols_

There's someone in my head, but it's not me.

-Pink Floyd

WARNING: No Light or Mikami in Arkham in this chapter! Sorry, but hopefully they'll make the next chapter. If it's any consolation, get ready for the sky to rain lead!

**MONTHS AGO**

**CHINATOWN, GOTHAM**

A man with two souls dragged himself up the street of Zhang Avenue in Gotham's China Town district, bleeding, sweating, and panting like a wounded animal. And he was indeed wounded: a bullet had struck him on his right arm. _Thank God it went clean through_he thought. _One less thing for us to deal with. Still, we need to hide. Call a doctor. Plan a-_

He passed by a car and nearly flinched when the windows burst into an explosion of shattered glass. Whirling around, he pulled out his ebony and ivory pistols. _Still got the killer's instinct_he thought, tempted to let the left side of his face smirk. Instead, he lifted up his ebony pistol and shot at his attacker. He was not surprised to see that the bullets struck a rather large footsoldier of the Ghost Shadow gang. The streets were covered with them. The streets were also covered by hordes of gangsters from the Guan Yu Family. It was utter gang warfare, and it was demolishing Chinatown with him stuck in the middle.

He wasn't stuck in the middle of the conflict itself: he was about to become an ally with the Guan Yu family, a powerful Chinese mob with organizations located in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, and Gotham. Still, this was a Chinese gangster thing, and he had his own problems to take care without meddling in someone else's business. Unfortunately, the Ghost Shadows, an inferior and weaker syndicate filled with small time gangbangers, didn't see it that way. It rained lead on the just and the unjust alike in this battle. True, most people had fled the town by the time the bullets started flying on the main street, but so far he had seen at least six civvies get caught in the crossfire.

_How sad that innocents have to suffer for our sordid affairs_half of him thought.

_Deserved it, most likely_the other half thought. _If people weren't so damned cowardly and took matters into their own hands, we wouldn't have Killer Croc or Clayface or-_

Or the Joker.

_JOKER!_He thought, fury clouding his mind, adrenaline shot into his lobes. _Everything was fine UNTIL__JOKER SHOWED UP! I'M GONNA KILL HIM!_

Joker was indeed the cause behind all of these misfortunes: Joker had appeared at his meeting with the Guan Yu's, along with the Ghost Shadows before all hell broke loose. What Joker had been after, he didn't know. Probably just wanted to blow up the entire city. He was capricious that way. Still, it was the worst moment for someone as deranged as the Joker to show up: he was just about to finalize his partnership with the Guan Yu family, intending to cooperate in their assault weapon trade. Had the deal gone through, he could have extended his territory and reputation significantly. Had the business been completely worked out, he could have become an even richer man. Had the agreement been finished and the last nail hammered into the coffin, he might have finally been able to put all this gangster business behind him.

But no. No, the Joker and the Ghost Shadows had to interrupt them from their dealings at the warehouse on the Wise Dragon Ferry. And the Joker hadto dress up like some Chinese monkey mutant, brandishing a sharpened wooden pole and proclaiming himself to be "Sun Wukong the Monkey King". It made about as much sense as anything else the Joker did (which was, really, nothing). Moreover, they had to start firing at him and his potential associates with pistols, shotguns, uzi's, and even AK's. Of course, there was never any chance that an organization like the Guan Yu's would catch themselves off guard, so their soldiers were more than ready to start blasting back with weapons of their own. He remembered how he could feel his heart turn to heavy lead right when Joker started leaping around the Guan Yu's and stabbing who he could, sliding in and around the bullets with a kind of chaotic grace. If you added the thirty Guan Yu's, the forty Ghost Shadows, and the twenty two soldiers that he had brought, that made for about ninety two strapped gangsters blasting at one another.

All in all, it was turning into a genuine John Woo wet dream. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if he saw Chow Yun Fat leap over one of these cars, giving any and all poor saps a hot lead sandwich. And if he didn't fix this soon, the Bat would probably arrive. With or without his sycophantic entourage, the Bat would bring him down. This couldn't be allowed.

_Not after all we've done_ he thought. _Not after all the crap__we__had to go through._

Up ahead, at the intersection, there were about six Guan Yu's and five of his boys facing off against ten Ghost Shadows, all of them hiding behind whatever cover they could find. He walked towards the Ghost Shadows, shooting both ebony and ivory, ready to dive behind a number of cars appropriate for cover. The pain his wounded arm had received from the force of the guns hurt excruciatingly, but he bit down hard on his teeth and endured the pain the best he could. He had withstood worse before. Agony was what created him, after all.

He shot three Ghost Shadows down quickly, one in the heart, one in the head, and one in the stomach. Several more began to fire at him, but he leaped sideways behind a semi truck with a picture of a pig on the sides and the words "PORK-CHOP EXPRESS" written in big, bold letters. Bullets stormed against the front of the semi while he reloaded his pistols. So long as he played this smart and didn't let his anger get the best of him, he could just stay where he was and cherry pick the opposition off as smoothly as he pleased. He was one of the best shooters around, and as he saw it the best strategy for him would be to thin out the Ghost Shadows at a distance before taking on a smaller number for close quarters combat.

_But the clown dies today_he thought. _He's gone too far this time. When we get our hands on him, we'll-_

Lost in his thoughts, he realized that several grenades had been tossed under the semi about three seconds too late. Really, it wasn't a lack of awareness on his part: he had been paying as much attention as anyone else could. Thing was, most people didn't need to concentrate in the midst of a large scale warzone. Not even Clint Eastwood could be aware of everything happening around him in this kind of environment.

He moved quickly, nonetheless. Just as he thought he was about to escape unscathed, he felt a force of extremely hot air lift him up into the air. It carried him about ten feet in the air, heat radiating at his back, and for a brief moment he deliriously entertained the idea that he was able to fly.

Then he could feel his forehead crash into the street, and he knew that he wasn't quite Superman yet. He got up as quick as he could, his forehead gashed and bleeding, his lungs filled with magma. That last fall had really taken it out of him: he had been in this shootout for over forty minutes now, and it was a miracle that neither the Bat nor any of his pet sidekicks had shown up yet. It must've been a busy day in all of Gotham, not that the city wasn't already busy enough to make people inject energy drinks directly into their veins.

Controlling his breath, he got to one knee and to one foot. _No good like this_ he thought. _Need to get home._ _Recuperate. Re-plan. If we get back to the docks, we might be able to-_

The sensation of an explosion of razor sharp pain incepting in his stomach interrupted his train of thought. Amidst the affliction surging through his entire being, he still retained enough sense to wonder who could kick him in the stomach like that. _The Bat?_He thought, not without some delirium as he corkscrewed through the air. _Lawton? Maybe-_

His train of thought was derailed the moment he crashed through one of the front display windows of a Rasputin Music Store. The life works of Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, and Tupac Shakur rained on him while he tried to regain his bearings. _Emergency_he thought, lying on his back, head facing the street, face looking up to the sky. His bruised and battered body refused to raise itself up despite his exhortations. _Run. Run as fast as you can. Get out, get out now-_

Strong, rough hands grabbed him by the back of his collar and lifted him high into the air. He flew higher and higher, stomach first, into a placid, cloudless sky seemingly unconcerned with his welfare and the welfare of every other poor schmuck involved. White doves flew overhead, undisturbed by the destruction.

Then his stomach slammed into the engine hood of a red 1967 Pontiac GTO muscle car. He probably would have rued the fact that his stomach had created a large crater in so beautiful and classic a vehicle, but the red, hot, and sharp sensation in his gut preoccupied him. This time there were no thoughts. This time there was only instinct.

Despite his nearly intolerable injuries, he rolled off the engine hood just in time to avoid a thick steel pipe, six feet tall and three feet wide, smash into the car. He landed on his rear, legs sprawled over the curb and onto the sidewalk. His breath racked and hot, he nonetheless grabbed his ebony and ivory pistols swiftly from their holsters, pointing them at his attacker.

The first thing he saw was an unnervingly huge sword pointed only inches away from his heart. His vision sharpened, and he saw that the sword was being wielded by a large, muscular man. The man was dressed in an orange, blue, and dark blue armor, and he wore an orange and blue mask with only one eyehole. The one eye of this new foe studied him calmly but not without hunger, like a tiger who knew the antelope had no chance in hell of escaping him. The armor was equipped with two pistols at the hips, two rows of belted bullets lined across the chest, several knives buckled to the legs and arms, and some kind of high tech staff attached to his back. The costume itself was jarring only to those who didn't know who was behind the mask, and once they knew they never forgot. Sometimes because they got away. Mostly because they were decapitated.

"Long time , no see, Harvey," Wilson Slade aka Deathstroke the Terminator said. "Or am I talking to Two Face right now?"

"You're talking to both," Two Face and Harvey Dent said. "And when you get both Face and Dent behind the steering wheel, we tend to react very severely. What the hell do you think you're pulling, Slade?"

"Just collecting that nice contract on your head is all," Deathstroke said, sounding faintly pleased like he was almost finished with a mildly challenging household chore. His voice sounded like a chainsaw draped in velvet, smooth and menacing, like maybe Tom Waits had decided to eat Vincent Price. "A pity we had to meet again under such conditions. But such is life, isn't it?"

"Whatever you're being paid, we'll double it," Two Face said, not moving his guns. "You know we're good for it. We've got automatics running in and out of Honk Kong now, and we've paid off enough politicos to insure they don't legalize pot and ruin our trade."

"Sorry, Harvey, but no can do," Slade said. "You may be the one of the richest gangsters in the state, but your wealth is just a piss in the bucket compared to what I'm being paid. No hard feelings, yeah?"

"Who's paying you?" Two Face demanded. His left eye narrowed in concentration; his right eye throbbed with fury. "Sionis? Joker? Cobblepot? All we need is to make a few phone calls, and we can outbid them all!"

"Harvey, you sell yourself short," Deathstroke said. "The rest of the freaks might control this state, but my employers are far more powerful. Far richer too. I don't know what it is you've done to attract the interest of these suits and ties, but they're paying me quite the pretty penny to deliver your head on a platter. If anything, you should feel honored. Not everyone gets to be killed on the word of several billionaires, you know."

"Slade, call this off, or I will kill you," Two Face hissed. "You don't want to fight me now. I've got the Guan Yu's backing me, and the Ivan's still owe me favors. Turn around, go home, and this'll all end here."

"Oh, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey," Slade tittered mockingly. The mask shifted ever so slightly, and Two Face could tell that underneath the hood, Deathstroke was smirking slyly. Harvey became disconcerted by Slade apparently knowing that he had the upper hand, and Two Face became infuriated that Slade had the goddamn nerve to both assassinate him and be smug about it. "I'll give even the Devil his due, and you are most certainly a ravenous pitbull. But at the end of the day, I'm Cerberus. Give up and accept the inevitable. Who knows? I might just be generous enough to simply slice off your head."

"You're bluffing, jackass!" Two Face snapped. "We've got you at a standstill, and the moment you move is the moment we-"

Slade moved so fast that Two Face barely had time to process the event: it was as if the assassin had moved so quickly that he had entered a higher dimension or superior plane of existence, one that Face could only perceive imperfectly. The blue and orange whirl moved as if blurring the air around him , and Two Face felt his vision go red with sharp, unbearable pain as the blade danced underneath his wrists, moving with intrinsic and graceful steps. Harvey and Two Face would have been impressed in spite of themselves had not the intense stimuli precluded them and drops of their own blood had not landed on their own face.

"GAH!" Two Face snapped, more like the snap of a doberman sneaked up on and less like anything coherent or articulate. He dropped his ebony and ivory guns to the street, and his hands, scarred and unscarred alike, clutched instinctively at one another.

However, the sharp realization that Two Face wasn't dealing with any ordinary assassin, but Deathstroke The Terminator, snapped him back to attention. He looked up: Slade was staring down at him, upside down to Face's vision, preparing to thrust his sword down right into his target's right eye.

"No-" Two Face began, eyes widening.

"Later, Harv," Slade said, plunging the sword downwards.

Had the move been completed as Deathstroke had intended, it would have gone straight through Two Face's right eye and probably out the back of the skull. Instead, Slade's one remaining eye widened ever so slightly when Face managed to stop the sword by grabbing the blade with both hands. The edge of the sword hovered only inches away from Two Face's eye, and buckets of sweat began to form on his face. The sensation of the sharp steel digging slowly into his flesh was agonizing, but still he gritted his teeth and held on as best as he could.

"My, my, my, Harvey, it seems like you have a bit more grit than I gave you credit for," Slade said. The sword came a bit closer towards the eye. "And here I thought the highlight of my day would be beer and netflix. Thank you for giving me such a pleasant surprise."

The tip of the sword came a bit closer. "But I wonder, exactly how long can you hold your position?" Deathstroke asked. "Three minutes? Four? Maybe even five? I'd give you at least twelve if not for the fact that you're utterly drained while I'm as fresh as a daisy."

"Screw... you..." Two Face snarled despite being short of breath. The sword came another inch closer.

"Oh, c'mon, Harv, don't disappoint me now," the Terminator said. "I don't think you know quite what it's like to hunt down the average target. So easy. So predictable. So underwhelming. But you, Harvey, you're a diamond in the rough, aren't you? A wolf among the dogs. So, please, for my sake if not yours, last for at least seven minutes. What else will get me out of bed in the morning if not this?"

The sword was now less than an inch from the eye.

"Oh, don't tell me that you've lost your edge, Harvey," Slade continued. "What , are the years beginning to get to you? Don't you remember how it was when you were younger? How angry you were? How you killed anyone and everyone in your way? Nothing quite so sad as an old dog who-"

Slade stopped speaking abruptly and yanked the sword out of Two Face's hands with one free hand. While Face screamed again in response to the sharp and sudden pain, Deathstroke pulled out what seemed to look like a high-tech detonator. Slade pressed the main button on the device, then ran, leaped onto a car, and then leaped onto the roof of "Goldfield's Magic Health Food" store.

It didn't take long to see why Slade had abandoned his assassination target. At least seven planted bombs exploded on the streets, shattering many a window and rupturing several cars to boot. Fortunately for Two Face, he wasn't close enough to get caught up in the blast. Instead, with a kind of morbid fascination that seemed to surpass his reason, he looked to the direction of the bombs to see why Slade had planted them and why he had triggered them.

The explosions had sent several Guan Yu's and Ghost Shadows flying in various directions, but they were joined by several new (and far more significant) visitors. A black and blue figure with a ponytail had crashed through the window of Moebius' Delicatessen; a small boy in black and red with spiky hair smashed into a light pole back first, bending it in the process; a young woman in some kind of red and yellow samurai get-up was thrown into a building's catwalk and landed on a closed dumpster below; a masked woman in a revealing black and purple costume landed against the windshield of a 1973 Ford Gran Torino; a young woman in a skimpy magician outfit with a top hat hit the doors of a 1963 Aston Martin DB5 before roughly landing on her hands and knees; and, lastly, a bizarre looking anthropic figure with orange, purple, silver, and brown skin divided into quarters went through a granite pillar and then a department store's glass doors.

_Nightwing, Robin, Katana, Huntress, Zatanna, and Metamorpho?_Two Face thought, pulling himself up and placing his back against the car's grill. _With no Bat? I hate the bastards as much as the next guy, but this simply isn't fair. With the Bat, they would have at least been even._

Two Face was well aware that now was not the ideal time to watch the lambs be led into the slaughter, but the pain from his injuries precluded his escape. _Just need a minute to catch my breath_ he thought. _As soon as Slade takes out the two metahumans, I'll take off. The rest of the schmucks will be too busy with Slade to bother with me._

There was another reason that Two Face stayed where he was that he would not consciously admit. That reason was that even though Deathstroke was one of the few people that Face feared, he was also something enthralling to behold. There were simply not too many people who could tear their gaze away from the sight of Slade front flipping off his roof, somersaulting onto the street, and then racing towards Zatanna with breathtaking speed. When it came to assassinations, the Terminator was theRenaissance Man. Two-Face supposed that watching Slade go to town on his targets was a bit like watching Poe write one of his gothic short stories or observing Goya while he painted one of his chilling monstrosities: it didn't exactly give you the greatest hope in mankind, but it was thrilling nonetheless.

Zatanna had gotten to her feet by the time that Slade was only inches away from her, and Two Face could see the sorceress move her hands down to her stomach as if to repel an attack she thought Slade would make. If one wanted to be an affluent gangster in Gotham, one needed to keep his ear to the ground on a regular basis. Two Face did just this, and among other things, he had learned that Slade had once thrown down with Zatanna and a few other JLA masks. Moreover, he had learned that they had lost. Badly. That past experience must have been why Zatanna was taking no chances.

"POTS EDA-" Zatanna began to say while Slade's fist rocketed towards her gut. Two Face's eyes, both normal and monstrous, widened in astonishment when he saw Slade snap around the magician at the very last second and then clamp two fingers onto her neck. Whatever technique Slade used was apparently effective: Zatanna stopped casting her spell abruptly and began coughing incessantly.

_The bastard was playing her the entire time_Two Face thought, amazed. _It's like watching the Bat's evil twin: everything he does is calculated. Not even the witch can stop him when he gets to work. Strength wise, she might be in the league of Mr. Red, White, and Blue and the Norse pretty boy, but all that amounts to jack crap if she can't talk._

What Two Face didn't know and couldn't have known was that, by roughly pressing down his fingers on a specific spot, Slade had realigned Zatanna's chakra and disabled her voice box, rendering her magic useless. What Two Face was able to know via his ocular regions was that Slade followed this attack by with a quick snap kick to the small of the alchemist's spine, sending her colliding into a city mailbox with enough force to knock it off its bolts.

"SLADE! GIVE IT UP!" Someone shouted from across the street. Two Face turned his head and saw that it was Rex Mason who was doing the shouting. Normally, the Element Man was quite the comedian, but now he looked as if not even a farting chimpanzee could turn that frown upside down. "We've already got the JLA and the Fantastic Four on their way! You've got-"

Quick as a flash, Slade fell to his knees, took the power staff from his back, and shot it directly at Metamorpho. The guy's skin might have been durable enough to stop anything short of Godzilla's breath from penetrating his skin, but it was not quite strong enough to completely repel the energy beam. It hit him directly in the chest, sending him flying about thirty feet in the air. Thankfully, Mason's flight was cushioned by his crash into a water tower marked with an "SB" inside a badge shaped logo over the "Shaw Brother's Electronics" store. Gallons of water crashed onto the roof and Mason's prone body, landing onto the street below. The one advantage to a gang war gone wrong was that no civilians were around to get wet.

Nightwing, Katana, and Huntress had become erect by this point, and were standing, albeit on wobbly knees. When Deathstroke hit you, he hit you hard, hard enough to stagger even people trained by the Bat. Still, Slade was not one to ignore loose ends: less than a second after he hit Mason with the power staff, he was already running towards the rest of his prey. "GRAYSON!" Two Face thought he heard Deathstroke roar before he leaped upon the unfortunate three.

_Gray... son?_Two Face wondered. _Neither black nor white, but... both? No. Preposterous. Only one or the other. Right?_Two Face shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his head. This was no time for philosophy. The loss of blood was making him delirious, and he decided to move as soon as Deathstroke was sufficiently distracted by his task at hand.

What transpired then and there was a sword fight of epic proportions, Slade wielding his sword against Nightwing's eskrima sticks, Huntress' staff, and Katana's Soultaker sword. It was pitiful and incredible all at once, not unlike the slaughters of the old samurai _chambara_flicks Harvey Dent used to watch, sneaking into Gotham's old grindhouse as a boy. (_The one advantage to having an insane, abusive father is that he doesn't care how you spend your time, so long as you don't interrupt his drinking_Two Face thought, half with regret, half with indignation.).

Slade again moved with an inhuman, spooky kind of speed, more a blur than a solid shape: it was all that the three masks could do to simply repel Slade's sword strikes. Two Face could have watched the Yuen Wo Ping theatrics just about all day if he wanted to, but his reason prevailed in the end. Lifting himself up, he gritted his teeth, determined to endure the pain until he could make it back to his safe house and call a doctor. He walked in the opposite direction, every step a chore, every movement a fresh sensation of burning discomfort.

He walked about one block and a half before a cold, restrained, yet unmistakably furious voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Going somewhere, Dent?" A young but malicious voice growled from on high.

Two Face looked up. There, on top of "Wing's Antiques", about fourteen feet high in the air, stood Robin, or at least the latest incarnation of the sidekick. Two Face had met his fair share of Robin's before: the very first time had been inside the Bat's cave when he and several other (_Freaks_Two Face thought, grimacing) had attempted to ambush the Bat only to be unexpectedly restrained by some acrobat kid in a homemade red and yellow suit. That kid (probably the first, judging from Batman's equally stunned reaction) was a foil to the Bat, laughing and cracking jokes and acting as if he actually enjoyed living. The second Robin Two Face had met was far different: the kid was somehow even angrier than his boss, and came very close to giving him a dirt nap. There had probably been other Robin's that Two Face didn't know about, but the one standing on the roof seemed most like the second one. The boy was barely a teenager, yet his face exhibited all the fury of a hardened inmate on death row. The fact that the costume and costume was torn, that the face was gashed, and that the skin was drenched with sweat made him look like he had been put through the wringer yet was more than ready to dish it all back out.

Two Face had, for several years, killed more men and women than he could remember, using guns, knives, and even his bare hands. He had lived among some of the most deranged animals on the planet and been regarded as one of their most dangerous members. He had even stared down his old man even after all the beatings the crazy drunk had given him with his lead pipe. Rarely did anyone scare Two Face. But looking up at that boy, at that kid who was so young yet so reminded him of the Bat, he could feel his heart drop somewhere down in the center of his stomach. The brat might have been trained by Batman, but he was not sure that he would get out of this one alive.

"GRAAAR!" Robin screamed, more animal than man, leaping off the roof. If Two Face wasn't injured, he could have easily blasted the boy full of holes with his ebony and ivory. However, even while slowly pulling out his guns, he knew that the battle was lost.

_Arkham, here we come_Two Face and Harvey Dent thought.

Robin's foot collided into Two Face's right cheek in a vicious muay thai kick, and both Face and Dent knew no more.

Slade Wilson sighed as he delivered a leg sweep to Katana, then palm thrusted her stomach before she hit the ground, sending her hurtling into two parking meters and breaking them in the process. _If only the Bat were here_he thought wistfully. _This is barely a warm-up. With Tall, Dark, and Gruesome, I__might have actually broken a sweat. How disappointing._

The high pitched sound of an arrow coming his way caught his attention. Shot by Huntress and her crossbow, no doubt. Turning around, he ran towards the arrow and it's shooter. Only inches away from the speeding arrow, he fell onto his knees and slid forward on them, leaning his spine backwards and dodging the weapon as a result. Judging from her wide eyes, Huntress was too stunned by the counter move to formulate a counter strike. That gave Deathstroke just enough time to leap up in the air and deliver a leaping karate kick that he intended to land on her forehead. It gave him some amusement to see Huntress duck the kick, though he knew the cute diversion to be only temporary. He countered her defense by sweeping his legs under her. She would have simply landed on her back without any further action on his part: instead, he decided to place a final nail in the coffin, punching her directly in the stomach, adding even more force to her fall and creating a sizable crater in the process. Huntress immediately lost consciousness.

_Now, where could Grayson be?_Slade wondered, standing back up, ignoring Huntress' groans. _I wonder if I should kill him now and get it over with, or prolong the suffering. Either way, so long as Dent doesn't get too far away, I-_

"Holy Diver, you've been down too long in the midnight sea," came a melodic, tenor voice from his pocket. "Oh, what's becoming of me?"

Slade arched an eyebrow but pulled out his cell phone anyway. Who could be calling him at this time? He assumed that most of his acquaintances were aware of his "Don't call me while I'm working or I'll stab you in your spine" rule. Unless he had done that to everyone who had broken the rule and failed to inform others. Then again, who could really, amidst the eternal sands of times, remembered who stabbed who or who shot who or who murdered who? It was unfair to expect so much out of a man as old as he.

_If it's that idiot Wade Wilson again..._he thought, placing the phone against his ear. His thoughts dissipated right before he began to speak. "Hello?" he asked.

"Wilson! This is codename Diamondhead!" Came an urgent, panicked voice on the other end. "We need you to withdraw immediately! We have reason to believe that-"

"Excuse me for just one moment," Deathstroke said, spotting Nightwing trying to sneak up on him out of the corner of his eye. When Nightwing got close enough, he began to throw a barrage of kung fu kicks and punches at Slade, but the Terminator easily blocked them all with one hand while holding the phone with the other.

"Oh, Grayson," Slade sighed as if disappointed with his younger foe. "Didn't the Bat ever teach you that IT'S IMPOLITE TO INTERRUPT PEOPLE ON THE PHONE?"

Deathstroke halted Dick's attacks with an elbow to the stomach, a strike to the forehead with the front of his fist, and then a "hadoken" palm strike right in the ribs: Slade grinned as he felt the bones bruise under his grip. The move sent Nightwing flying backwards several feet. The hadoken forced Slade to drop the phone momentarily, but his fingers nimbly caught it before it hit the ground. Noticing that Nightwing had landed near a "Shaun" gas station, Slade whipped out a pistol for good measure and shot three of the eight gas pumps. Just as the Terminator had predicted, the ensuing explosion catapulted Grayson up and through the adjacent glass window of "Miyazaki's Sushi INC" restaurant.

_The hadoken was probably a bit much_Slade conceded, pressing the phone against his ear again _But at least Deadpool can't brag about knowing the shoryuken anymore._

"You were saying?" he asked, sounding as if he had just needed a moment to discipline a particularly unruly child.

"Slade, get out of there now!" Diamondhead snapped. "We have reason to believe that both Batman and Kira have uncovered our operation! Your destroying Chinatown is sure to blow our cover! We need you to disappear before we lose control of the situation!"

"You understand that there's no refunds, don't you?" Slade asked, as casually and carefree as you please. "This isn't Wal-Mart, you know. I've gone to a lot of trouble to set this all up, and-"

"I can assure you that you will get every cent you have coming to you!" Diamondhead exclaimed frantically and breathlessly. "We will even double your fee! Triple it, if that's what you want! You know that we can afford it, that we could afford to hire ten of you if that's what we wanted! BUT NOW WE NEED YOU TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? NOW!"

"I love it when you talk dirty," Slade smirked. "I'll be at the usual place in three hours. Make sure your envoy makes it, or the Bat and Kira will be the least of your-"

"SLADE!" A small and irate voice roared. "YOU ARE SO DEAD!"

"… I'll call you later," Slade said, turning off the phone and sliding it back into his pocket, not even waiting for a potential response. He turned ninety degrees to his right and wasn't surprised to see the Bat's boy and the latest Robin, Damian Wayne, charging full speed at him with an furious look on his face.

_This should prove interesting_Slade thought as Robin fell upon him.

The boy was good. Damn good. Damian came at him with all the speed and force of a raging bull, and threw everything at Slade from savate to jiujitsu to moves that he made up on the spot. _Still needs some work though_Deathstroke thought, easily dodging and blocking all the kicks and punches. _The lack of a stealth move was a big misstep on his part. I would've heard him, but he couldn't have known that for sure. Looks like the Bat hasn't taught Junior here the value of self-control. Probably still angry about how I took control of his body and forced him to fight Grayson. Some people just won't let things go, will they?_

Before he had taken on the assassination contract under Talia al Ghul, Deathstroke had insisted on learning everything about the sidekick whom he was to vicariously use to eliminate Grayson. Well aware that she was dealing with the world's greatest assassin, she consented ad told him everything: how Damian was created in a laboratory using the Bat's seed and her egg, how he had been trained by the League of Assassins as soon as he could walk, how the boy's biggest weakness was his inability to completely control the fire in him.

_It's nice to know that going to all the effort of tying up loose ends really does pay off_The Terminator thought, ducking in time to miss a sambo kick aimed at his head. _A little water will help put out this fire._

Deathstroke waited for his chance until he saw an opening. He shot his hand in, quick and precise as a snake, grabbing Robin by the cape. Yanking Damian closer, he kneed the boy in his stomach, smirking as he heard the boy gasp in surprised agony. Slade then grabbed Damian by the back of his head and smashed him head first into the street.

Even with the kid's face smashed into pure concrete, he was still bucking around like a cornered bull. For a moment, even with his knee on Robin's back, Deathstroke was afraid that the brat might toss him off. But then Slade's hands found Damian's arm, and the fear dissipated as quickly as it had appeared.

"Boy," Slade said, "I can assure you that this will hurt you far more than it will me."

Slade snapped the arm back, dislocating it in the process. "GRAAAR!" Robin snapped (not so much screamed) in agony. Just as tears of pain were involuntarily forming in Damian's eyes, Deathstroke leaped back to his legs, quick as a flash, and kicked him in the side.

Like Batman, everything Deathstroke did was calculated, methodical, and precise. Just like Slade had predicted, the kick sent Robin sailing through the air about twenty feet before he hit the marquee of the "Red Cliff Theater". The collision was strong enough to snap the marquee in two, and several letters from the title "ENTER THE DRAGON" fell along with Damian as he landed on several cafe tables and chairs below.

Deathstroke whipped out two pistols, intending to end this little problem of his once and for all. If the boy was allowed to live, he might actually surpass his own father. True, the Terminator had defeated the Bat in single combat before, but what he had never told anyone (and rarely admitted to himself) was that Wayne was one of the few able to keep him on the ropes. Damian was already in a league that took other men decades to achieve: best to pull out the root while the weed was still young.

Deathstroke paused, then put his pistols back in their holsters. _No, that would be too merciful_Slade thought. _Another death in the family would hit Wayne and Grayson hard, but there's another way to inflict more damage without needlessly making al Ghul my enemy._ Slade grinned as he imagined all the wonderful possibilities. _The Bat failed the second Robin, Jason Todd, didn't he? And Grayson is clearly one of the boy's mentors. Turn the boy against them, Wilson, and you'll be able to devastate them in ways they've even yet to imagine. Two birds with one stone. Or, should I say, one bird and one bat with one stone._

It was a refreshing idea, something that might keep him busy on a lazy sunday. To pull it off, he would need to be even more devious and underhanded than before. Still, he had been treading on thin ice enough recently. It was a miracle that Kira hadn't offed him by now.

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks_. Interesting_Deathstroke thought. _I'm a killing machine, born and bred, and yet Kira hasn't snuffed me yet. You would think that Kira would have eliminated me the first chance he got. That little stunt L pulled on that Japanese station has already proved that Kira has limitations, but a genius like Kira wouldn't have had too many problems finding out all he needed to know about me. Is there anything about me that precludes him from killing me?_A new thought came to him, and his sly fox grin returned. _Unless maybe this God of Death is interested in acquiring a Terminator._

Slade paused. _Both Batman and Kira after my employers?_He wondered. _If that's the case, then they're__both bound to bump into one another. And the Bat already thinks that he's a god, so a conflict is inevitable. Love to see that one on DVD._

_Unless maybe the Bat and the Devil are working together_He thought. The thought came out of nowhere but struck him like a lap dance. The idea was unlikely, even absurd. But the potential... even someone as apathetic regarding human suffering found the concept exciting. _Well, stranger things have happened._

Two oncoming, high pitched whistling noises interrupted his reverie. He quickly unfastened a buck knife from his arm and tossed it at the source of the noise; without missing a beat, he pulled out his sword and slashed at the other interruption. He was not surprised at all to see the buck knife strike and knock a eskrima stick off its course nor was he stunned to see his sword repel another eskrima stick. Slade didn't need to turn around to see who was responsible for the attack: it was Nightwing, holding his bruised ribs with one hand, clenching his fist with the other, snarling with a face that only his mother could love if she wasn't already rotting six feet under.

"You're not getting away, Slade!" Nightwing snapped. "Not this time! Not after what you've done to me! Not after what you've done to Bludhaven!"

"Oh, Grayson, take responsibility for your actions, why don't you?" Deathstroke taunted him. The proverbial potato was almost done, and all Slade needed to do now was provoke him a little before he could stick the fork in. "Like how you turned my own daughter against me. Like how you let Bludhaven become a veritable Gaza Strip. Like how you allowed your own dear old mom and dad to kick the bucket."

Slade had successfully stuck the fork in the potato, judging from how Dick charged at him, screaming in fury. The former Robin was fast, but Slade was faster. Deathstroke tensed himself, waiting for Dick to get close enough. When Nightwing was about three inches away from goring into Deathstroke, the assassin sprung his attack. He dashed behind Grayson, and, without even looking backwards, kicked his foot at Nightwing's heel.

The tactic worked. Deathstroke grinned as he heard the bone snap: just as he had anticipated, he had broken Dick's ankle.

"AUUUGH!" Nightwing screamed. He hobbled on one foot, trying to turn around and face Slade. "Damn you, Slade! Damn you to-"

Slade cut off Dick with a 360 spinning kick, his combat boot colliding into Grayson's cheek like a sledgehammer. The velocity and force of the kick sent Dick sprawling to the ground, and the younger mask rolled a bit on the street before coming to a stop.

"I'd love to stay and chat, Dick," Slade said, watching with amusement as his opponent tried to roll over to his stomach. Apparently, the Daredevil rip-off was too wounded to simply flip to his feet. "Unfortunately, I have business to attend to. Email me later, OK?"

"Going to kill you," Nightwing panted. Slade arched an eyebrow as he watched Dick get to one foot and one knee. Nightwing's ponytail had come undone, and now his long jet black hair stuck to his sweaty skin like a wig gone wrong. "Do you understand me, Slade? I'M GONNA KILL YOU!'

"My greatest victory over the Bat," Deathstroke smirked. The smirk became even bigger when he saw Dick flinch. That's what happened whenever your master refused to man up and enjoy the natural right of slaughter. "Another Robin gone wrong? The idea gives me goosebumps, Dick, it truly does. Sadly, we'll have to defer that for later. But do me a favor and stay alive at least for a little longer, won't you, Dick? I think something might be coming to Gotham, something terrible and wonderful. And if it is coming, I want you to see it. I want you to see this wretched city burn."

"What? What's coming?" Dick exclaimed. In his fervor, he had forgotten the possibility that Slade might be lying to him. "Tell me what you know!"

"And spoil the surprise?" The Terminator scoffed. He grabbed several pellets from a pocket and threw them to the ground. Immediately, steam began to hiss from them and quickly covered Slade. "I think not. I'm looking forward to this one, Grayson. Let's pray you don't become worm meat before all that you know and love crashes and burns."

"SLADE!" Dick bellowed. Ignoring the screams of agony from his body, he lifted himself up and hobbled at the man he hated most in this world as fast as he could. As if in reply, Deathstroke tilted his head back and began to laugh, a deep, rolling laugh, the same laugh that haunted Dick ever since he had been a child. The steam completely enveloped Slade by this time, yet this failed to prevent Dick from leaping into the fog.

What it didn't preclude, however, was Dick flying right through the mist, his head crashing into a steel trashcan bolted to the sidewalk. Tears of pain unwillingly formed in his eyes while he cradled his injured head with one hand. He had failed to stop Slade, and he knew it. Failed to stop him just lust like he had failed to save Bludhaven. And as much as his head hurt, the now fading yet still hellish laughter of the Terminator afflicted him even more.

When the smoke had cleared, it was obvious that Deathstroke was gone. A reasonable part of himself knew that the loss wasn't that great: Two Face had been captured, the destruction of Chinatown had been at least limited, and no sane man could ever expect Dick and his paltry team (at least, compared to their foe) to bring Slade down. However, an unreasonable, proud part of himself knew that he had failed once again: failed Gotham, failed Bludhaven, failed his master and mentor. Bruce would never say it, but Dick knew that he would be disappointed.

_Once again, I've failed to live up to my father_Dick thought. _God, what a joke._

Nightwing and Robin were both too injured to drive their motorcycles back to Wayne Manor, so they arranged for Katana and Huntress to drive them back to their respective hide-outs. One click of a remote later, and the Batmobile quickly drove itself to their location. Their drive home was a quite one: normally, Damian would irritate with his entitled and self-important bravado, but tonight his younger student seemed to be more contemplative (this despite the intense pain they must have both been suffering; tonight Alfred would be insisting on painkillers).

_If there was anything good about this day, it's that Damian was probably humbled_Dick thought. _Damian needs to know that he's not invincible. Still, what a way to find out._

Bruce was largely silent on that day's events, from what little Dick got to see of him. Dick and Damian entered the mansion through the cave's secret back entrance, neither very surprised to see their mentor still at work on the Kira case. By this point, Robin and Nightwing knew well enough that it was useless to ask Batman why he was so obsessed with the world's mass murderer: the fact that Kira was a threat to global peaced was enough to involve Bruce professionally, but their master was going about it as if he was personally involved in the conquest himself. When asked, all Bruce would ever say was that it was the right thing to do. Other than that, he would simply keep quiet as a clam. However, despite Bruce's increasingly hermetic attitude, Dick was grateful that his teacher didn't do much more than grunt and nod in acknowledgement of their presence. Usually, Bruce would chew them out for every

and any mistake that they made, but considering that not even General Patton could scold his soldiers for failing to contain a tornado, Bruce evidently thought it best not to rub salt in with the wounds.

_Thank God for that_Dick thought while walking up the stairs to his room. _The last thing I need is Bruce haranguing me. And if it was anyone else other than Bruce, I would have told him to shove his ridiculously high standards up his ass a long time ago._

_So why don't you?_Dick asked himself. _Bruce is a great person, but he's also a very flawed person. At his worst, he's hostile, callous, and frigid._

_Because unlike all the al Ghul's, Loki's, or Kira's, Bruce actually judges himself by his own demanding standards._Dick answered himself. _Love him or hate him, the man works his ass off._

The thought that his teacher wasn't as big a sociopathic prick as his worst detractors made him out to be put a little spring in Dick's leg (At least, not the one numbed from the painkillers. _It was either this, or Alfred would have probably cooked pot in my food_Dick thought. _And he would have done it too. Hey, Bruce, you're such a great detective, why don't you tell me how it only took one bowl of strange tasting chili to get you to spend Christmas Day with all of us at the house?)._At the top of the stairs, Ace, Bruce's pet dog, had curled himself down to sleep. It didn't hurt Dick too much to lean his knee down and scratch behind Ace's ear, the way he knew he liked it. Ace muttered pleasantly, then began to kick his legs. Good. The dog was happy. And if Ace was kept happy, then maybe Bruce would come around. Bruce found it easy to distance himself from people; Bruce missed Ace about half an hour after not seeing him. Keep the dog happy, keep the bat happy.

That little optimistic bit might have been why Dick did something that night that he had not done in a long time: pray. That horrid laughter kept replaying itself in his mind, though the encounter with Ace was uplifting. Dick prayed solemnly to a god he wasn't sure existed, but who he could use now in times like these. Times when Gotham was giving birth to even more freaks and scum. Times when a megalomaniacal jack-ass like Kira practically clutched the world in his hand? Times when everyone just assumed that they were all utterly doomed, and nothing they could ever do would ever really make things better.

Dick asked for only one thing: not to dream that night. All he wanted was some peace, some time away from the maelstrom. Surely, that was not too much to ask.

So Nightwing shut his eyes, and whether or not God had made it so, Dick slept a dreamless slumber. No more gunshots. No more screams. No more Slade. Just peace.

Though Dick would spend much of the next day healing his wounded ankle, he felt a little more upbeat. Things would get better, so long as they made it so. There was still some kind of justice left in the cosmos. God maybe wasn't such an an asshole.

What Dick nor anyone else could have known was that God was coming to town.

NOTES: The secret to getting through life is to keep your standards low. That being said, I hope you won't be too disappointed then when I say that as long as it took me to do this, it will probably take me even longer to do the next chapter. I'm out of college, and looking for a job, so I don't have as much time as I used to. I feel like I need to get all this stuff out of my head, so I'll probably end up writing it all out, but it could take a while. Just letting you know. But shit will get awesome. I can guarantee that. You waited this long for Dark Knight Rises, right? See? You can wait. Give yourselves a round of applause!

I pulled a Tarantino in this chapter and alluded to several cars, buildings, and names, many of them from movies. Because this chapter used a lot of Hong Kong cinema action (at least, until the superhero fighting began), a lot of the allusions are to Chinese films, _wuwei_, action, or otherwise. And then some are just references to movies I dig quite a bit, largely because I needed I needed a car or a name here and there. Quite a bit of fun too. Suddenly, Simon Pegg constantly alluding to Point Break, Lucio Fulci, and Night of the Living Dead seems so much clearer.

Just in case you're interested (Or bored enough to read further. Either one works for me.), I've listed all the allusions below.

Zhang Avenue: A reference to Yimou Zhang, a fantastic Chinese director responsible for movies like Hero, House of the Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower. Coincidentally, he just worked on a movie with our latest Batman, Christian Bale, called the Flowers of War.

Guan Yu Family and Ghost Shadows: Guan Yu is a legendary general who fought during China's Three Kingdoms period. He's considered a God of War (no, not like Kratos) and an exemplar of honor, virtue, and comradeship. I first learned of him watching John Woo's superb epic Red Cliff, and later learned that both cops and gangsters venerate him as a sort of saint. Hence the Guan Yu family, which, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't actually exist. The Ghost Shadows are an actual Chinese gang, but I did no research into them other than googling "Chinese gangs".

Son Wukong the Monkey King: Wukong is another Chinese legend, whose modern day adaptation might best be Son Goku of Dragonball Z fame. Why Joker decided to dress like him, I have no clue. Was probably funny though. In a "Oh, God why?" kind of way.

John Woo/Chow Yun Fat: This director and actor have worked on movies like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled. Watch them now, and find out why Robert Rodriguez has such a boner for them.

Pork-Chop Express: This was the semi Kurt Russel drove in the cult classic "Big Trouble In Little China". They need to name a holiday after this one.

Goldfield's Magic Health Food: This is the name of Goldfield Hwang's medicine store in the reality show Kenny vs. Spenny. Normally, I hate reality TV, but the crude, raunchy, and oftentimes shocking humor of this show had me scouring through YouTube for each and every single episode. Not the smartest show, but one of the most fearlessly irreverent.

Moebius' Delicatessen: Moebius was the pseudonym of the late French artist Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, probably best known for his work on the Heavy Metal comics.

1973 Ford Gran Torino: This was the car that the Dude rode in The Big Lebowski. Years after having his car dismantled by German nihilists, the Dude's car is wrecked by masked superheroes. How can anyone possibly abide this?

1963 Aston Martin DB5: James Bond drove this in films including Goldfinger, GoldenEye, and Casino Royale.

Shaw Brothers' Electronics: Shaw Brothers Studio is a famous film company founded by Run Run Shaw and Runme Shaw in China. My favorite movie from them is the 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

Wing's Antiques: Wing was the name of the old man who refused to sell the dad Gizmo in Gremlins. For a creature that could unwillingly spawn savage monstrosities from its body, it sure was cute.

Holy Diver: A classic song from the band Dio, sung by the late Ronnie James Dio. My guess is that Slade is old yet energetic enough to have the likes of Iron Maiden, Boston, and Blue Oyster Cult on his iPod.

Enter The Dragon: C'mon. You know.

Yuen Wo Ping: An incredible action choreographer whose work has appeared in movies like Fist of Legend and The Matrix. If I could afford him, I'd hire him to work on an animated adaptation of this story. Sadly, I don't think he would be much interested in my back issues of Silent Hill comics or my shoebox filled with acorns as payment. And here I thought it was about the love, about the music.


	4. It's A Madhouse

**CHAPTER IV**

**IT'S A MADHOUSE**

**(OR SO THEY CLAIM)**

One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.  
>- Friedrich Nietzsche<p>

He that is taken and put into prisons or chains is not conquered, though overcome: for he is still an enemy.

-Thomas Hobbes

Lady Claire Gurney: How do you know you're God?

Jack Gurney AKA Jesus Christ: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.

-"The Ruling Class"

Note: Just for clarification, everyone in this story speaks English to one another except for Teru and Light. When Kira and his disciple speak to each other, it's probably in Japanese: there's nothing quite so weird as watching a movie where people in a non-English speaking country talk to one another in that language. I'll let you know whenever the language changes.

Regarding the death of Officer Ennis, I wasn't trying to say that comic book alchemist Garth Ennis is gay in real life. Just needed a name, was all. Incidentally, Ennis' attitude regarding the LGBT crowd, especially in his superb "Preacher" series, seems to be that of patriotic admiration. I think I cried tears of laughter when the two gay English guys spoke about how proud they were to become Americans because of their freedom to become butt buddies. That, and I thought the conservative talk show host turning out to be gay was classic. (Why else does Stephen Colbert call Bill O Reilly "Papa Bear"?) God bless America !

Also, the characters Doctor Divya Kapoor and Doctor Francisco Riviera are based on the actors Rekha Sharma (the agonizingly sexy Tory of Battlestar Galactica fame) and Danny Trejo (the bad-ass vato of many a Robert Rodriguez movie, his most popular role probably that of "Machete"). Obviously, your brain will cast whoever it can and/or wants for these parts, but these were the two I had in mind writing this chapter.

Lastly, I know that the sanitarium process at Arkham Asylum (i.e. imprison the "freaks" even if they were aware of the consequences of their actions) is not the same as the one in real life which states that a person can only be institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital if it can be proved that they didn't know what they were doing (e.g. someone kills a number of people because his schizophrenia makes him believe that he's Jesus and he has to exterminate all the werewolves). I'm still keeping the "freaks" angle, but I'd like to make the psychology of the story reasonably accurate. If you see something wrong with my handling of the science, please let me know and I'll patch it up as best as I can. Thanks!

...

**THE PRESENT**

**GOTHAM** **CITY**

**ARKHAM ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE**

Dr. Divya Kapoor sat at her desk, in her office, surrounded by stacks of paper. Her computer sat directly in front of her, and the room sounded louder than it normally did, probably owing to the fact that she had been typing more than quickly for the past five hours. She leaned back in her leather plush chair, extending her sore arms behind her, hissing as she heard something in her spine crack with a small _pop _! As if automated, her vision blurred, and her sense of consciousness became murkier. She shook her head, ponytail flapping, in an attempt to revive herself.

_Damn comfy chair _she thought. _I only bought it because I needed something to cushion my back while sitting down for hours on end. How was I supposed to know that it would be comfortable enough to fall asleep in? _

_You chose this, Divya _the young psychiatrist reminded herself. _You were the one who convinced the warden to let you treat both Dent __and_ _Joker. You were the one who decided to get no more than five hours sleep every night for the past week. You made your bed, so at least have the grace to not bitch about you lying in it._

This was all true, but nevertheless she felt like she deserved some kind of sympathy for choosing to take on the lunatic brigade. Like, say, maybe, a cute boy refilling her cup of coffee for her. Nothing big, nothing special. Just trying to cure two madmen who would tear your head off and stuff it in the toilet if they got a chance. Ho diddly hum.

Dr. Kapoor was a relatively recent addition to Arkham, and so far it seemed like she was a good fit for her, though it was obvious to her that she didn't look the part. Her subjective opinion would not quite correspond to any objective testimony, but she was a rather beautiful woman: smooth dark skin, an athletic but curvy body, and long, luscious hair (currently tied into a pony, aka the "try to hit on me later and not when I'm trying to control visceral madmen" look). However, she was of the disposition to regard herself as ordinary. Her belief was that her appearance was not at all that special, only attractive in comparison to many of the other asylum residents (a belief that did not meet most of the opinions of her colleagues, judging from how many hid their wood from her, to use the parlance of our times).

Still, Dr. Kapoor perceived that her "relative" good looks made working with the patients easier. People tended to interact with people better the more attractive one or the other conversant were. Thus, many of the uglier inmates responded well to her. She even placed her hands on theirs, sometimes, when the occasion called for it. Perhaps that was all callous reasoning on her part, but so far it had resulted in overwhelmingly good progress. Most of the patients that she had treated were now far more able to control themselves. A few had even declared sane and released. At the very least, her treatment of Jonathan Crane aka "Scarecrow" had been largely successful: Scarecrow, one of Arkham's most feared psychopath was now mostly cooperative and peaceful. Oh, sure, he still occasionally threatened the guards that he would murder their spouses and their children in the dead of the night, but most believed this to be preferable than his previous hobby of hanging his victims from streetlights.

_I think this place must be driving me crazy _Divya thought, rubbing her sore temples with her fingers _Because that line of reasoning no longer disturbs me. And I must have been insane to agree to take on Two Face and Joker at the same time. It's not like my... decent looks are going to help me with the terror twins, anyway. _

This was true, and for two reasons. The first was that all the female employees of the asylum, from Tyra Gibson, the pretty young intern, to Vivian Jefferson, the fifty eight year old secretary, was to refrain from making any sort of suggestive move in front of Dent. It hadn't been all that long ago that Renee Montoya, an ex-cop, had rejected Two Face's proposal of marriage. In hindsight, it probably didn't help Face's chances that he had framed Montoya for corruption, kidnapped her, and revealed to her homophobic parents that she was gay. Only a person out of touch with reality would think his scheme would work, so Harvey fit the bill quite nicely. Hence, the lawyers becoming concerned that, at best, Harvey would commit sexually harass any female, and at worse poison the rivers again. Never mind that Two Face seemed (incredibly enough) too depressed to make any sort of sexual advance. Never mind that neither Dent nor Face were the kind of persons to do something low, sleazy, and classless like that. Never mind that they were much more likely to put tiny shards of glass in the other inmate's meals.

It didn't help that Two Face now trusted the doctors at Arkham Asylum even less than before, if such a thing was possible. When the late Dr. Cavendish attempted to "build on" Two Face's duality obsession all those years ago, he did far more damage than he did repair. Yes, Dent's perceived set of options, actions, and responses were increased when he advanced from his coin to a die to a pack of tarot cards, and, yes, it helped mitigate his hostility and paranoia. Then again, it resulted in him not being able to make simple decisions like going to the bathroom without consulting his copy of the I-Ching. Harvey 's personality had been effectively destroyed: not all that, not all that shocking, though, considering how Cavendish turned out to be just as insane as his patients.

_This place will do that to you _Divya thought. She glanced, not without trepidation, at the blindingly white plaster of the walls. _Lord knows that I don't try to buy into all that gothic crap, but this place... it seems to have an effect on people, and not a good one._

In any event, Dr. Kapoor's research on Dent revealed that he suffered from an abnormal form of disassociated identity disorder aka multiple personality disorder. Normally, patients suffering from this particular illness switched from one personality to the next, often with one personality unaware of the other. Two-Face was a unique exception: not only were Dent and Face well aware of each other's existence, but they both had to inhabit the same body at the same time. Moreover, though it could be argued that Two Face was the stronger of the two and that he controlled the body most of the time, it was clear that Face needed Harvey , as loath as he was to admit it. Harvey was the brakes of the car, and without him Face would speed, crash, and burn.

To make a bad situation even worse, while at one time Harvey might have been receptive to Divya's professional intimacy, there was no way that Joker ever would be. Her analysis of Joker suggested that the self-proclaimed "Crown Prince of Crime" was asexual although there seemed to be evidence that he "loved" Batman in some sort of perverse way. Not so much Brokeback Mountain as Fatal Attraction, as it were. Besides, Joker already had an on-again/off-again squeeze in the form of Harley Quinn although he seemed less interested whispering sweet nothings into her ear as he did screaming death threats. And if Joker was going to use Quinn, a woman more attractive than Divya (at least, in her opinion), as his own personal Patty Hearst, it was perhaps not so absurd to suppose that touching his hand might result in her cadaver being found in the harbor.

_God, Divya, you're depressing me _Kapoor thought _You're a professional doctor, not some whiny emo poet. Everyone is curable, even the Joker. And after you cure him, that's when the real cheddar will start rolling in. Think about it: more grants, more funding, more exposure. You'll finally have the money you need to move Mom out of that-_

Divya's last thought caught her off guard as suddenly and abruptly as a slap against her face. Her nails dug into her palm, and she clenched her teeth as if someone was pulling her hair. She shut her eyes tight, attempting to will herself from not shedding any tears.

_Not no, Divya _she thought _You can cry later when you're back home. Self-pity isn't going to get Mom out of the nursing home. Only your research will. Now suck it up!_

Kapoor sighed, breathed in through her stomach, then out of her mouth. She felt a little better: the relaxation techniques that she had learned in her tai chi classes really made a difference.

Now more at ease, Dr. Kapoor opened her computer's file on Two Face and began to peruse her notes. Many observations had been jotted down, but none even seemed to imply a concrete answer. Most of the notes were useless in that they told her what she already knew. Some of these notes contained such chestnuts as _Two Face_ _reading Jekyll and Hyde __again_ and _Face threatens to murder if not allowed to play __both_ _Edmund and Edgar in upcoming King Lear._ There was really only one note that possessed any potential: _Is Harvey getting tired of being Two Face? _ Dent, like everyone else, was aging, and the same stunts that he pulled off with such vigor and fury years ago now seemed to indicate less energy and decreased enthusiasm. This was not to say that Harvey wasn't still dangerous (it would be another two weeks before Riddler could chew solid food): it was more accurate to say that the tiger was now stumbling here and there while running.

_Christ, I wish I had some pot_ Dr. Kapoor thought, tired. _I could use a jolt of creativity to help men come up with something new. _

Before Divya could sigh, an idea came to her. She paused, then began to quickly type down her thoughts.

_Harvey_'_s father was mentally ill and still is _She wrote _Harvey_'_s illness is partly genetic, but Two Face could have still been contained if the courtroom incident never occurred. If sanity is like a piece of cloth that becomes so much easier to tear apart even after just one small snip, then Maroni throwing that acid into Harvey's face must have been the tear. Two Face can only see in black and white, but is that what he truly believes, or was that just something for him to fall back on? Harvey was hurt terribly: everything that he had ever worked for blew up in his face. He did everything that society told him to do in order to be happy: he exercised, he studied, he persevered, and he did the right things. But somehow he winded up here. Could it be that Harvey is subconsciously afraid that he'll be hurt again if he trusts others? Is that why he's convinced himself that life can be understood dualistically? Is it that he's using his obsession with duality to protect himself?_

The train of creative thought came to a halt. Hoping that comparing the two patients might unveil something useful, Divya opened her file on Joker.

It didn't help her all that much. Not much was known, let alone written, about Joker, and what facts there were about him were scarce at best. What the doctors at Arkham Asylum did know about the Joker was that he did whatever he wanted (provided that he thought it was funny), that he thought life to be an absurd tragedy with no point whatsoever, and that he was utterly obsessed with killing the Batman. Moreover, in the past decade, only two significant discoveries had been unearthed regarding him. The first was that the Joker apparently didn't make his own decisions: things just "happened" whenever he was around. Normally, Divya would consider that kind of excuse to be crap, but since there were other people, like say Deadpool, who accidentally caused, say, Venom dinosaurs to rampage through Manhattan, the excuse didn't sound all that fallacious. Divya could even remember an anime an old _otaku_ boyfriend had once shown her, something about a dorky but cool gunman who seemed to have trouble follow him everywhere in the form of chaotic gun fights, perpetual explosions and end-of-the-world- caliber damage. The difference here was that the accidental damage that Deadpool and that anime character (_What was that other's guy's name? _Divya wondered. _Nash? Mash? Vash? Something like that, anyway) _were responsible for was unintended, yet Joker seemed to get a kick out of the catastrophes that occurred in his wake.

What progress had been made with the Joker was bitter sweet at best. While no one had actually been able to thoroughly classify his illness, some headway had been made a few years back. It had been discovered that Joker had no control over the information that his sense fed him, and this seemed to result in a highly unstable and unpredictable "super sanity", the result being that Joker was born anew each and every single day. Thus, one day he would act like a harmless prankster, another day he would act like a sadistic serial killer, and another day he would believe himself to be the voodoo spirit Papa Ghede, transporter of pure souls in the afterlife realm.

_But even though he may be the Patron Saint of Chaos, there seems to be an underlying current of logic to Joker _Divya thought. _His plots are erratic as they come, so they're difficult to anticipate, but they always involve hurting the Bat as much as he can. But why Batman? What is it about the Bat that Joker is obsessed with?_

Divya mulled this for a few minutes before something fresh and new struck her. As before, she began to type.

_Whoever Batman is under the mask, it takes only one good look at him to know that he's successful in some capacity _she wrote. _That body. That athleticism. Those brief windows of beauty you see behind his mouth and eye holes. Batman may not be in the social league of, I don't know, someone like that sexy beast Bruce Wayne _(Divya quickly deleted this) , _but it's clear that he's worked hard to achieve the life he now has. At the very least, he's proof that you can achieve something great if you work hard enough at it. Still... he's so grim. So dark. Something must have hurt him terribly to give him that kind of identity. And Joker? Well, who knows? He'll never let us know. At least, he won't stop lying about his origins for the foreseeable future. But it stands to reason that something painful would have created Joker as well. So what's the difference? … It takes a lot to create, doesn't it? And it doesn't take much to destroy... Batman must have worked hard to create his identity, but Joker... it doesn't seem so difficult for him to destroy. That's another big difference between the two, but there's something else there, something right at the edge... choice. Choices. The Bat must make choices: in the nietzschean tradition, that's what makes a person great, what makes them a superman. Not the Superman, though. Can only imagine what the relationship between them is. _(Divya also quickly deleted this and wiped some drool from her mouth. A girl could dream.) _And if Joker really can't make choices, if things just happen with him around, then-_

"_Mija_, Gordon and his men are here", came an old, weathered yet tough voice from the door, interrupting her train of thought. Normally,, this kind of interruption, even an unintentional one, would irk her. However, there was only one person who could speak with that kind of voice, and the sound of it made her feel safer even in this house of lunacy. Divya glanced at the doorway, and though she knew who the voice belonged to, she immediately felt better for having done so.

In the doorway stood Doctor Francisco Riviera, the senior psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, Divya's mentor, and the man who should have been her father. Standing at over six feet, weighing at over two hundred pounds (a good part of it muscle accompanied by a beer belly), with a face that looked like it had never fully recovered from onsets of acne, Riviera was somehow the one uplifting aspect of the asylum.

You had to know Riviera to understand why the women of the asylum thought him to be a cute grandfatherly type and why the guys thought him to be cooler than their fathers. Of course, just about everyone knew Riviera's story, and it made him popular among their ranks, even among many of the inmates. Riviera had grown up dirt poor in Gotham's barrio, and like many a juvenile lacking opportunity or resources, had fallen in with the gangster scene. A botched robbery had sent him to the big house at the age of nineteen, and while he had ruled the roost for awhile, something had changed him on the inside. What it was no one knew. But one day Cisco realized that he was surrounded by weights and books, and he began to employ them extensively. Maybe it was Jesus. Maybe it was Muhammad. For all Divya knew, it could have been Luke Skywalker. Whatever the inspiration, Francisco became skilled at boxing and karate, and he spent hours of his time in the library until he had nothing else to read. This encouraging behavior earned him an early release, and from there he kept on striving throughout community college, Gotham State University, and the university's prestigious master's program.

Though Riviera was a brilliant psychiatrist specializing in psycho analysis and gestalt therapy, it was clear that his size served him well in Arkham. Only the most extreme cases dared to give him any lip (although even the more violent ones seemed to recognize that more would be lost than obtained if they were to pick a fight with him). Moreover, Cisco had chosen to work and remain in Gotham when he could have transferred to Star City or Chicago or anywhere else that wasn't Perdition.

"I spent a lot of my life living off the pain and misfortunes of others, _mija_," he had once explained to her. "My time in the pen made me think about how foolish I was, Divya. I used to think that it was me against the world. My books made me realize that there's a hell of a lot of other people out there who think the same way. Too many people. I'll bet you even Batman thinks that way, at least from time to time. So think about it, girl, think about how great things could be if others realized that they weren't alone, if people began to trust each other more. That's the world I want to live in, and I don't think it's that far out of reach. That's why I plan to stay at Arkham for a very, very long time. If we convince our patients that life doesn't have to be this way, even Joker could change."

It didn't hurt that Riviera was around 230 pounds and made Mickey Rourke look like Christian Bale. However, Cisco's ugliness was an endearing flaw, not a detractive one. If Francisco had been some macho, sexist jack-ass, the face would have probably made him seem more egregious. As it was, by some counter logic, the scarred and worn face made Dr. Riviera look... well, cute, in a kind grandfather sort of way. _Like an affectionate bulldog_ Divya thought.

"That time already?" Divya asked. She got up, her back groaning in protest; she snapped her neck but restrained an unprofessional sigh. "I thought that the new patients were coming at three".

"It is three, Divya," Francisco said, arching an eyebrow. "You've been setting there since ten o clock yesterday".

"Well, time flies when you're having fun," Kapoor muttered sarcastically. "Incredible, isn't it? Hush has flown the coop, Gotham 's elite still don't have to pay more taxes than the homeless, and the mayor is making it seem like a personal favor that we're getting more security officers. Sometimes I think Arkham makes more sense than Gotham . At least the freaks look like freaks here; out there they get to wear tuxedos."

'It's Wonderland, all right, 'Alice'" Dr. Riviera concurred. He stepped aside and let Dr. Kapoor pass through the door. "Guess that makes me the white rabbit. Jack rabbit, anyway."

Divya and Francisco walked out onto a steel catwalk. Several other offices were positioned along the walkway, and a few cells built to safely interview patients were sprinkled here and there. Divya suspected that no amount of professional appearance could completely efface the fact that the interior of the rehabilitation wing resembled the interior of some bio-steel leviathan, half iron, half flesh. Put another way, the surroundings were enough to make David Lynch look like Mickey Mouse.

"From what I read, these two new patients don't play with kid gloves," Riviera commented as they descended down the stairs. "One acts like he's been stuck in a Vietnamese tiger cage for years. Gordon says that the other has a god complex. I can't say that I'm feeling confident about this, _mija. _We might keep getting more and more masks out on the street, but we're definitely getting more and more occupants in this jolly old ranch of ours. Sometimes I wonder how much this hospital can take it before the levees break."

"Maybe so, but once we get our sessions underway, we can make them better," Divya said. The energy behind her words sounded hollow to her, like ready acceptance without enthusiasm to provide the spark. No spark, no progress. She hoped that Dr. Riviera wouldn't notice. "One has issues with, ah, controlling his anger, to put it mildly. The other consistently experiences megalomaniacal delusions. This is nothing new. I'm not saying that this will be a breeze, but I'm sure we can handle it. We've done it before and we'll do it again."

"This is true, but I'm concerned about the possibility of taking this for granted," Francisco said. "More and more inmates arriving at Arkham, I mean. We've done this for a good many year, but there's always and probably will always be the possibility of Arkham falling for good. The atmosphere is always going to be tense in that sense. And what makes it worse is that so many of our patients are capable of doing it. Adding the new fish increases our likelihood of the asylum being torn apart from the inside out. Especially since Gordon and his people found out that the newest members of our quirky little family are also responsible for the murders of several low-level crips, skinheads, diablos, and other street trash. And the forensics prove that not only were our boys the killers, but that they were able to carry out the murders quickly, skillfully, and intelligently. Everything from blades to plastic bags to silenced pistols. I'd say that it boggles the mind, except very little boggles my mind nowadays, and probably yours as well."

"True, but they were caught," Divya pointed out. "They could very well be considerably dangerous, but I'm willing to take the risk. If we can cure even just one of these patients, we could become the next Jung and Freud." Divya paused. "Without that whole Sabina Spielrein thing, I mean. I don't even want to imagine how weird that would be applied to us."

"Maybe Virgil and Dante would be the more appropriate reference," Dr. Riviera said dryly. "After all, don't we already work in Hell?"

The doctors arrived at the bottom of the stairs and at the loading bay. This was where the maximum security inmates were admitted, as opposed to the front where the less dangerous patients were registered. The front was all class, with waiting rooms, magazines, flowers, and everything else needed to make people forget that insane serial killers occupied the same building. The back was all business: there were no gestures of polite considerations here, only the sordid nitty gritty required to keep the psychiatric process spinning.

The compound was a largely featureless room: the ceiling was set very high up, the ground was plain steel, and the room itself was largely free of obstructions. Basically, it was like Costco, only for freaks. There were only two other room down here, both of them guard quarters, each stockpiled with assault rifles securely locked and hidden away. The personnel of Arkham Asylum had learned the hard way to give Scarecrow an inch was, in effect, to post the National Guard for an eight mile radius.

Two large, armored, military style vans had parked themselves inside the compound. Outside the opened iron shutters, the night was an inky pitch black, and the wind blew with a sinister whisper. Six maximum security guards, all dressed in similar black suits, all of them armed to the teeth, and all of them pointing their assault rifles a young and handsome Asian man, stood huddled around the latest inmate. The latter looked faintly amused by his surroundings, as if he were the sole adult watching a group of children at play. He was shackled and binded from head to toe with thick, strong handcuffs on his wrist and shackles on his feet. Moreover, Commissioner Jim Gordon was standing only a few feet away from the new patient. Gordon was as hard-boiled as they came, and most criminals tended to look abashed when subject to his glowering gaze. However, the new inmate seemed completely carefree, as if he was above the tedious activity about him. Divya felt interested by this man: he was undoubtedly sick, but then he appeared to be so highly unusual.

The new patient was already dressed in his asylum uniform, an orange shirt, white undershirt, and orange pants along with the number 666420 printed on his sleeve. _The clothing actually makes him look handsome _Divya thought, hoping that she wasn't blushing. Arkham Asylum wasn't exactly filled with Adonises (Dr. Kapoor had reminded herself more than once not to make any references to the Elephant Man when first treating Killer Croc) , but if this inmate wore his outfit outside of the sanitarium, she would still think he was cute and maybe not some Hot Topic douchebag. In this case, the clothes didn't make the man: rather, the man made the clothes.

"Hello, Commissioner Gordon," Doctor Kapoor said, extending her hand. Gordon shook hands with her, then with Doctor Riviera . "So who are we treating here?: Hannibal Lecter or Patrick Bateman?"

"Maybe both," Gordon said, giving Light a dirty look.

"Oh, Jim, I'm hurt," Light said, arching an eyebrow. "Is this how little you think of me? And here I thought we were becoming friends."

"Yeah, you'll be hearing a lot like that from this one," Gordon said, pinching the sides of his sinuses. Gordon, despite his usual old man Eastwood demeanor, looked as if it was only coffee keeping him going at this point. "I've given you everything I can, doctors, because Yagami is incredibly dangerous. Still, I do feel like I need to emphasize some things about your latest patient. He's something of a rare case: he was a detective on the Japanese Kira Task Force, but Kira's murders of his teammates caused him to snap. Then he becomes convinced he's Kira, and that it's his destiny to face Batman."

"This is cute, Jim, it really is," Light said dryly. "Use my own cover against me, is that it? No one could believe that Light Yagami is Kira, but you could get them to believe that Kira drove me mad. Quite clever. And here I was afraid that you and the Bat would be all sizzle and no steak."

"Heh, but deep down you knew that the Bat wouldn't disappoint, eh, Light?" Light and only Light heard a hoarse, gleeful voice say. "And I think you might have learned the hard way that the Bat's steak is as bloody as they come."

If anyone in that room but Light and Teru had touched the Death Note, they would have seen Ryuk perched upon a corner of the van, midnight black wings spread out, grinning at the spectacle from on high. Light glanced at him from out of the corner of his eye and thought that Ryuk looked quite at ease in this house of broken minds and wounded souls.

"So this is the place, huh?" Ryuk chuckled. "I gotta say, nice digs. Kind of like The Goonies meets Saw. Hey, Light, do the Truffle Shuffle! Oh, wait, that's right, you can't!". At this he threw back his head and barked an obnoxious laugh.

Even if Light weren't currently chained and shackled by several armed officers, he wouldn't lower himself to the extent of legitimizing Ryuk's asinine commentary with a response. Still, the sanitarium and its freak show exhibits would keep Ryuk occupied and out of Light's hair. And the more Ryuk was out of Light's way, the more Light could concentrate on the work at hand.

_Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, after all _Light thought, grinning a little.

Light ignored Ryuk, and Gordon continued. "This one is extremely dangerous, doctors," he said. "I'm sure that you'll be able to find out more about his psychosis than I ever could, but I've been a frequent witness to this violence that this scum bucket is capable of, and, believe me, he is capable of more. A lot more. Don't fall for his smooth talking either: give him an inch, and he'll bash your brains in."

"They're unloading the second patient as we speak," Gordon resumed, gesturing with his thumb to the back of the second van where several more officers were pushing something large, heavy, and metallic, and hidden largely in the shadows down the rear's ramp. "Word of advice: don't get too close to this one. Distance wise, I mean. Yagami may be deluded, but his accomplice is crazier than a sack of cats. I understand that most professional psychologists don't, ah, prefer such blunt talk, but, and I emphasize, off the record here, this goddamn lunatic makes Charles Manson look like Fraggle Rock."

Arkham Asylum had, in the past, been described by the more philosophically minded as a theater of the absurd. In this hospital, the world was upside down, white was black, and night was day. Many of the employees, subjected to incessant displays of bizarre horror, had become desensitized by it all. Still, the empirical side of the two doctors knew that as improbable as it was that they should receive a patient as intellectual and debonair as Light Yagami, it was near impossible that they should receive another similar inmate. Yet Cisco and Divya both knew that at Arkham, logic, more often than not, took the backseat and insanity stomped the pedal to the metal.

Their response was not too perplexed then when another attractive Asian man turned out to be their newest patient, this one with long, spiky, raven black hair and cold, penetrating, indifferent eyes. Add to the fact that this rather sober looking well-built man (Riviera estimated 210 pounds at least, 230 at most) had been restrained in a straitjacket and then carted via a locked dolly, and suddenly a boring 9 to 5 work day skyrocketed to the top of your Christmas list. What looked like a modified hockey mask was attached to the lower half of his face, apparently to imprison the teeth.

"Doctors, meet Teru Mikami," Gordon said. "And before you ask, yes, we thought the mask was necessary. It might seem melodramatic to you, but try telling that to Officer Brubaker's missing finger." The officer carting Mikami seemed to growl something low in agreement. Divya decided not to look at any of his hands.

Riviera had known Gordon for quite a while, and he knew that Gordon wasn't one of those insular _cerdos_ who wanted to simply lock up everyone, insane or merely criminal, all lock and all key, disdaining the psych majors and their infuriatingly inscrutable desire to heal the asylum residents who deserved help and compassion. Gordon was reasonable and intelligent enough that he was usually able to keep his personal life seperate from his professional life. True, the commissioner had every right in the world to hate people like Joker or Crane, but unlike the police, the media, and the city itself, Gordon seemed to understand that the "freaks" (_For lack of a better term _Dr. Riviera noted) made up only about ten percent (at max) of the Arkham population. True, the number of the freaks was enough that they were able to keep the rest of the inmates under their thumbs, but Gordon appeared to understand that the rest of the patients were more of a threat to themselves than to anyone else. When you were a paranoid schizophrenic, saw ravens with three heads attack you, and believed that both the FBI and KGB were following you, it was not as easy to pull off a bank robbery as, say, Mr. Freeze.

_His son has been institutionalized here too _Riviera thought, rubbing his chin. _That can't be easy for him. And Jim is a good man: all the tests indicate that James' psychopathy was caused by a genetic fluke, not by anything that his mother or father did. God only knows how I would react to one of my boys being locked up in this surreal hellhole. _

"My Liege , I pray that the infidels have not treated you too horrifically," Teru said, looking at no one else but Light, as if everything else about him were merely secondary concerns. "It shames me as a retainer that my master should be detained in such unworthy, squalid conditions."

"_I'm fine, Teru, thank you for asking," Light said. "Don't take this too badly, my friend. Merely a temporary setback. We'll be running this show in due time. Besides, compared to some of the third world slums that we've seen in this godless town, this is practically the Taj Mahal."_

"It's been trouble enough keeping this animal under our supervision," Gordon continued. "More than once we've had to taze him with enough electricity to drain an entire city block. Of course, that hasn't prevented him from stabbing an officer in the hand with a pen, from breaking a doctor's arm, or from crashing a squad car, with him in it to boot. Yagami has acted better since the," Jim swallowed hard, but much to his relief, no tears formed in his bloodshot eyes, "murder of Officer Ennis, but I'm not convinced by his sudden beatitude. I think he may still be up to something."

"Is all this really necessary?" Dr. Kapoor asked, sounding skeptical. She had trouble believing that someone who looked like a sports ad model could really be a brilliant psychopath.

"You read the file?" Gordon asked her.

"Yeah..." Divya said.

"Then you know that Mikami is responsible for at least twenty two murders in Gotham alone," he said. He was tired but he sounded as professional as he could. It wasn't Riviera 's or Kapoor's fault that Jim Jones and Timothy McVeigh had just landed in their neck of the woods. "I am well aware that neither of these two look like your average freakshow, but that's how the packages were assembled, I'm sorry to say. And Mikami here has been going to town with ice picks, piano wires, and leap pipes, among other things. Moreover, he's been in captivity this entire time, and I haven't seen him lift a single weight or do a single push-up while he's been healing from his injuries, so a whole lot of people don't understand why he's suddenly looking more and more like Brock Lesnar when he should be losing muscle in his hospital bed. Maybe he's constantly tensing himself. Maybe he continually channels his chi or his chakra or his energy or his whatever. I trust that you'll find that out. But I do feel like I need to warn you, doctors."

"Maybe he's spankin' the monkey!" Ryuk barked, roaring with laughter.

"Where the hell are you picking up these expressions?" Teru asked, looking up at Ryuk.

"Talking to something invisible now," Gordon said, his fingers trembling very slightly (the minutest fraction of a tremble would irritate him either way, and he knew it) while he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. At Barbara's insistence, he had given up cigarettes six years ago. As far as he was concerned, dealing with the Devil and his insane Angel of Death explicitly proved that he had damn well earned this. He lit one up quickly and anxiously. He needed it more than food or water at that moment. He continued on, as if this wasn't all that big a deal, and, no, he wasn't delivering two mass murderers to what was already a house of endlessly recurring nightmares and bewildered agony. Oh, God. "That's a new one. Not too surprising though. He's already been quoting just about every religious book that he can remember, and not of the Dalai Lama variety. No, we couldn't have that luck, could we? For whatever reason, we had to get the one who recites Revelation."

"And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever," Teru replied stoically, "and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

"I'm sorry to tell you this, doctors, but I think Mikami here will very well test your faith," Gordon stated, not sounding all that surprised at Mikami's choice of words. "If there was ever anyone who interpreted turn the other cheek as bash the other cheek, it's this nutter. Also, there's a notebook that Yagami and Mikami like to use. It's a big black one, and it says Death Note or something morbid like that on the cover. You'll find it all in the reports, but Mikami and Yagami both believe that if you write in it, people will die. Batman has one of these books, but Yagami's hidden the other one. If you do see it on him, I suggest that you confiscate it. They've deluded themselves into believing that they have the power of Kira with this Death Note, but that's obviously ludicrous because someone like Kira wouldn't come out to Gotham and start murdering with the Bat around."

"Perhaps I was merely testing you, Jimbo," Light said, arching an eyebrow. "Did you ever consider that, that perhaps I was simply dipping my toe into the pool before I leaped in? Or that you're persecuting me merely for taking the garbage out? What's next? You arresting the Good Samaritan?"

"In their hands, this Death Note could exacerbate their conditions," Gordon said, ignoring Light. "And as destructive as Yagami and Mikami are, I can't help but think that their behavior can and will get worse."

Light felt like saying something else clever back to Gordon, in particular indicating that nothing these primates did could do anything worse than stall him. However, he swallowed the urge down instead. _No, now's not the time for them to know_, he thought. _The less they know, the better. It won't pay off in the present for them to know about the second book. About what I've done with it. _

"Oh, I do know one more thing about Mikami's, ah, 'disposition'," Gordon said. He turned towards Light: "You know, Yagami, I saw Solaris last night and I thought that it was terrible. Who could possibly like such a pretentious piece of-"

Mikami screeched like a howler monkey, and began rocking violently to and fro with wide eyes of mad dog fury. Before any of the startled guards could catch the dolly, Mikami fell over and struck the floor. However, that was apparently what Teru had been shooting for. Gordon took a step back when he realized that somehow, the lunatic was pushing himself towards him, with some sort of demoniacally brilliant energy.

"ACCURSED HERETIC!" Mikami roared. "BLASPHEMOUS HELLSPAWN! YOU WOULD DENY THE MAJESTY OF TARKOVSKY?! YOU WOULD DENY HIS EUCHARIST?! I'LL PUT MY THUMBS OUT IN YOUR GODDAMN EYES!"

"Teru, stand down," Light said. He didn't seem particularly disconcerted with the frenetic fervor of his disciple. At worst, he may have been faintly annoyed. "You're just playing into Gordon's hands, and your behavior is unbecoming. Believe me, when I want you to bring the pain to these unbelievers, you'll be the first to know. Trust me, OK?"

Mikami's face immediately regained it's composure with a speed that worried and intrigued the doctors. Most people didn't switch from one antithetical mood to another seamlessly. Done too often, it hindered the transition of logic and exhausted the body's resources. _This must be the behavior Commissioner Gordon was referring to _Doctor Kapoor thought.

"I beseech you for your forgiveness, Your Majesty," Teru said, cool as a cucumber. "Your unworthy disciple simply couldn't withstand the sullying of such sublime art from such an egregious heathen."

"Not to worry, Teru," Light said. He sounded as if he were consoling an intern. "Save your energy for when you need it. 'Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice have no business entering the heat of the debate' as our dear Nietzsche once put it."

"And on that inspiring note, I'll take my cue to exit and leave the rest to the professionals," Jim said to said to Cisco and Divya. "Good luck. If you have any questions or if these two reveal anything that the GCPD should know, you have my number. And feel free to call me anytime, day or night. Somehow I doubt that I'm going to be able to sleep soundly even with these two behind bars."

"Your opinion is duly noted, Commissioner Gordon," Dr. Riviera said. "Believe me, if we need outside help, you'll be the first we call. But I think that we can handle it from here."

Asylum guards equipped with batons, tazers, and mace appeared on the ground floor, and the SWAT guards restraining Teru and Light began to pile back into the van. Silent and unhesitatingly, the asylum guards began to escort Light and Teru through the caverns of the sanitarium. These guards were not afraid, or at least they didn't see why they should have been afraid. These were the same individuals who kept the Jane Doe's and Victor Zsasz's of the world locked up, and these two didn't look nearly as threatening as your average run of the mill lunatic.

Light and Gordon walked in opposite directions, Gordon to the van, and Light into the asylum. As they passed each other by, Light grinned at Jim. Gordon, who had spent decades standing up to everyone from demented and merciless murderers to corrupt and powerful politicians, felt his knees slightly wobble.

"Until next time, Jimbo," Light smirked.

Jim Gordon was never that religious a man. After all that he had seen in Gotham , he found it difficult to believe in a personal, benevolent creator god. He sometimes supposed that there could be one. He thought he sometimes heard it speaking while he listened to John Coltrane, and he thought he might have felt something like it when he watched Barbara play her violin on stage. But in another, more negative, sense, not only had he witnessed some horrible things, but he had also been privy to some truly bizarre things. Gordon suspected that all the college education or military training in the world could never truly prepare one for men who believed that they were Zeus, men who committed crimes only on holidays, or men whose boss was a irascible ventriloquist dummy. So stranger things had happened, and probably would continue to happen, knowing his crappy luck. However, he was pretty agnostic most of the time.

Oh, Batman had taught him a few Buddhist techniques to help him better control his anger, and the army, as immoral as the Vietnam war had been, had indirectly taught him to seek solidtude within himself. Thus, he was somewhat spiritual, but he doubted that he would be meditating in a Tibetan temple anytime soon. But seeing Yagami and that cold, devious glint in his eyes, Jim Gordon came to a revelation.

_God may or may not exist _Gordon thought _But I think the Devil does. _

Commissioner Gordon and the rest of the officers got into the van and drove off. Gordon tried to tell himself that it was all over and done with, that the world was finally free from Kira. But against seemingly all logic and reason, he, deep down, doubted that this was the end of Light Yagami.

The van drove away from Hell on Earth, but Jim Gordon didn't feel it leave him.

* * *

><p>Light and Ryuk followed a slightly overweight asylum guard down the hall and to Light's new room. The man who fancied himself a god and his reaper were now in the maximum security zone, saved for Arkham's most threatening occupants. The guard leading them down the hall wore a shaved head, wore glasses, was fairly muscular, and had a name tag that read "RUCKA". Light did not think that he would have too much trouble with this guard.<p>

It was very early in the morning and Light suspected that Gordon's pigs had woken him at such an ungodly hour with the hopes that the sand in his eyes would minimize his capacity for destruction. On any other occasion, Light would have taken great delight in squashing their hopes. Today, he decided to play the cards smoothly. Now was not the time to lie them down.

The hall was occupied by rooms of fair size, all of them similar in design. As these were cells for the most disturbed inmates, privacy was considered a luxury: all the rooms had translucent walls, where guards could check in on the inmates just by staring at the barrier. A heavy iron door with padlocks and electronic key holders prevented the inmates from leaving their quarters. Most of the inmates were either asleep by this point or knocked out unconscious. Light thought that the lack of carpet and exposure of solid black concrete between the rooms were intentional. All in all, it was an impressive example of an industrial hellhole.

"Mr. Scarface, please don't!" They heard a weak, pathetic voice cry from one room. "You know how much I love my sister! Anyone but her, I beg you!"

"Oh, puddin', you shouldn't have!" Another voice, far more feminine and chirpy, mumbled as if in a dreamy stupor. "The Bat's head! Just what every girl wants!"

_And they say Silent Hill is bad... _Light thought to himself.

"This has got to be the greatest day of my life!" Ryuk chuckled, beaming like a kid in a candy store.

"Alright, freak show, here's your cell," Rucka said to Light, stopping at cell #1071987. Rucka took out a key card and swiped it through a slot. The door opened with a small electronic hiss, and Rucka moved aside so Light could move in. Light walked in calmly and without expression. "Wake up call is at 7. Breakfast is at 7:30. Give us any trouble, and we'll taze you until your brain leaks out of your ears. Sweet dreams, punk."

Rucka closed the door, locked it, and then walked away to perform his patrols. Light surveyed his room critically, as if determining whether or not it fulfilled his standards of quality. Only the bare minimum, that which the law requires in order to prevent him from losing his mind (or more if it), was supplied. In his largely plain cell, there was a thin bed, a worn desk, an old chair, a rusty toilet, and a discolored sink. Against Batman and Gordon's wishes, the doctors had allowed Light to bring with him several books of his own choosing, which were now sitting on his desk. The doctors had also enabled Light to hang a poster of Friedrich Nietzsche, Light's favorite philosopher, on his wall. The poster had a quote on it, a quote that Light had repeated to himself like a Buddhist mantra whenever he was caught in challenging dilemmas. The quote read: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

Light nodded in approval, then moved closer to his translucent window. Across the hall was Joker's empty cell. Eventually, Joker would return. The Joker would never go live a normal life: he would be sent back to Arkham by Batman, escape, be captured again, escape, rinse and repeat. The cycle of murder, insanity, and obsession was still in full swing.

"Until I end it," Light said aloud.

"Eh?" Ryuk asked, cocking his head. "End what? Teru's obsession with bullcrap movies that I can't understand?"

"We've much more to be concerned about than Teru's, eh, passionate admiration for Fellini and Bergman, Ryuk," Light said. He lied down on his bed, arms behind his head, legs crossed. "Now that I'm finally in here, the real work is to begin. Everything up until now has been to draw in the Bat. We don't have much time before we have to reel him in. Enough time, I can assure you, but we'll be rolling up our sleeves for the next few months."

"Speakin' of the Bat, how come you told me not to see him?" Ryuk asked. "He's touched his copy of the Death Note already, so he has the ability to see me now. I wanna see how a bad-ass like him will react to someone like me!"

"Probably the same way he reacts to all the demons, aliens, and gods he's seen before," Light replied. "Surprised interest, I would imagine. Perhaps equivalent to finding a five dollar bill under the couch. In any event, it's not time to use you yet. The less he knows about our current operation, the better."

"You don't seem worried at all," Ryuk remarked, impressed in spite of himself.

Light glanced at Ryuk and grinned knowingly, and it took only that grin to make Ryuk realize something so profound that he was surprised he did not realize it earlier. Light was a monster. Light was the worst man he had ever met. Light was the Devil himself. And Ryuk was so, so grateful that he hadn't written his name down anytime earlier.

"Why should I be?" Light asked, eyes gleaming with anticipation. "Everything is going according to plan."


	5. The Devil Went Down To Gotham

**CHAPTER V**

**THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GOTHAM**

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

The spirit that I have seen may be a devil; and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape; yea and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me.

– Hamlet Scene II Act II

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

-Buddha

Dick Grayson walked down the stone stairway leading to the Batcave, and he did so more cautiously than usual. His broken ankle was no mostly healed save for some aches here and there, and he didn't want any stupid recklessness to screw him over again. He walked using a crutch, each awkward step a reminder that Slade had gotten the better of him. So long as Dick learned from his pain, he could preclude himself from having any sour grapes.

The first week of rehabilitation had been, well, fun and new compared to both his day job and night job. Smoking medicinal grass and playing video games had been great for the first week, but he could only blow off so many zombie heads before that familiar itch came back to him, that need to embrace the night once more, to bask in the radiance of the moon's light as he soared above the mere anarchy of the streets below. That, and his cable was broken.

"Master Richard, please do me a favor and look in on Master Bruce below," Alfred had asked Dick, while dusting the book shelf in the upstairs library. Alfred looked as trim and as staid as always, even after the many sleepless nights he spent aiding Bruce in Kira's capture. "And please do try to convince him that he won't burst into flames if he gets a little sunshine. I know how much he likes to play Dracula down there."

"I guess I will, but why don't you get Damian to do it?" Dick had asked sincerely. If Alfred asked you to do something, he usually had a good reason for it: the backbone of Bruce's war against crime was not one to screw around. "He's in better shape than I am right now. And where is he anyway?"

"Meditating under one of the cave's waterfalls, I believe," Alfred has said. A ghost of a dry smile had played at his lips. Without saying anything, Dick knew that they were both aware that the boy who could easily take out an entire room of fighters would undoubtedly squirm like crazy in his attempt to sit still. "Master Bruce did not have too much sympathy for Master Damian's lack of, eh, 'finesse' during that last China Town battle, apparently. Far from not following his own advice, I've seen Master Bruce practice meditation and yoga far more than usual lately. It would appear that he's been emphasizing control as of late."

"It's not easy to control yourself around Slade, let alone Light Yagami," Dick had countered.

"Ah, but when is it ever?" Alfred asked, arching an eyebrow. He asked the question in such a way that it only seemed half rhetorical.

Dick wasn't so sure how to respond to that one, so he made his way down to the cave instead. The more exercise he gave his bum leg, the better. That, and he thought it probably would be a good idea to get Bruce out of his man-cave (Dick smiled a little at that one): Bruce had always been somewhat of a recluse, but this was about the eighth day that he had spent holed up. It was getting to the point that Dick had found catalogs for tanning stations littered across the living room.

_Thank God for Lucius _Dick thought. _Bruce is pretty good at numbers, but between spending his own money on the latest gadgets and running off whenever the sun sets, it's a miracle that Wayne Tech hasn't gone bankrupt eight times over._

Dick glanced here and there over the cave as he walked down but really saw nothing out of the ordinary: the cave was still largely the same as it ever was, a massive chasm of shadow, stalacite, and stone like the fanged yawning of some midnight demon. Despite the powerful impression that the cave gave off, Dick admitted that the place looked less morbid than it usually did. This was most likely due to the two new items that Bruce had added to it: a Japanese rock garden and a eight foot tall fig tree. Dick assumed (he would have asked Bruce but getting answers out of him could be like trying to pick up Mjolnir) that Bruce had added these new things in order to keep his mind disciplined during this whole Kira fiasco. Still, it was all largely dealt with even if Bruce insisted on tying up each and every single loose end. Considering the hell that Yagami had caused in Gotham, Nightwing had been astonished that Batman had spared Kira's legs when he first caught him. But then, that was Bruce for you: mental self discipline always seemed to set him apart from the rest of the pack.

Dick landed on the bottom of the stairs, not surprised in the least to see Bruce still at work. Still in his Batman get-up, Bruce sat in his black leather swivel chair, something that his presence managed to make look like an H.R. Giger throne. Lying beneath the chair, loyal as always, was Ace, napping untroubled while his master toiled. Even while looking relaxed though, Ace could at any moment snap into action and attack the enemy closest to him with all the speed and force of a torpedo. He was like Bruce in that sense.

In front of Bruce was a curving steel console, about ten feet wide wide, the center smooth like a desk and the sides fitted with monitors and televisions. Above the console was the massive monitor to "Dupin", Batman's state of the art computer. Nightwing could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise up whose images were on the monitor: Yagami. The images were from the monster's past and present: from his childhood, from his high school and his college days, and from his current incarceration in Arkham. Nightwing noticed, disconcerted, that Yagami seemed to look stronger and stronger the older he became in the photos, not as if he were gaining muscle like Mikami, but more like... more like his spirit was in the process of becoming indestructible. Dick knew from his experience with Joker that you didn't have to be the biggest, toughest guy around to become especially durable.

J_oker might be into chaos, and Yagami might be into law, but I think they might have something in common_ Dick thought. Yagami's GCPD mugshot showed him giving a faint, knowing grin: it was the taunt of invulnerability in those eyes that got to Dick. They were the kind of eyes that said he was unstoppable and made you believe it too. _You and Joker have both been around the block a few times, haven't you? You might have had different names and appearances, but even then you were probably the same as you are now: old souls. Evil, old souls._

"So I take it you burnt into flames again," Dick said, trying to break the ice. He stood a few inches away from Bruce.

Batman glanced at Dick, clearly not getting the joke. "What?" he asked, unamused.

"Never mind," Nightwing said. "What've you been up to, Bruce? Everyone thought that even you of all people would be celebrating after the Kira case. Instead, you've been cooped down here for days now, and you haven't even been answering our calls. What gives?"

"What gives is that this case probably isn't over," Batman replied. "I know that it looks like it is, but I've been going over all the loose ends, and nothing about this strikes me as finished. This whole case... it's rotten, Dick. Rotten in a way that even I can't put together."

Dick bended over and scratched Ace's ear. Ace grunted in approval, sounding much like his master.

"But what could be wrong now?" Dick asked. "The cat's in the bag. Yagami is going to rot in Arkham until the day he dies. OK, so maybe he'll bust out once or twice, but then one of us will stop him and lock him up like we always do with the others. And weren't you the one who told me not to worry about the future because we can't control what we don't know?"

"You make some good points, Dick, but you're overlooking some things," Bruce said, still staring at the documents and photos intensely. "It's the inconsistencies. They're too numerous not to have been intentional."

"What do you mean?" Nightwing asked, standing up while Ace began to scratch his own ear with his foot. 'What inconsistencies?"

"The new M.O., for one," Batman said, now looking directly at Nightwing, giving him his full attention. "Yagami didn't work like this before. L and I both induced from all our intel that Kira works like... like an inconspicuous virus. With the Kira Task Unit, he waited long enough to be cleared of suspicion before he eventually became their ostensible ally. Yes, Naomi Misora and Raye Penbar were most likely murdered by Yagami in direct offensives, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. The rule is that despite his inordinate pride, Light prefers to work quietly and meticulously. Take the KTU, for example. Once inside their operation, he somehow retained a more or less unnoticeable disposition until he was able to dispose of L. A clever strategy: by removing the head of the group, he was able to take over the reins, at least until he needed to dispose of all of them. Knowing Yagami, he's probably more than familiar with the Art of War. In this case, Yagami usually follows Master Sun's advice to allow the enemy to come to you and not vice versa, thus draining the enemy of energy while you preserve your own. So this is where the inconsistencies arise, namely, why would Yagami use a new strategy and tactic in Gotham? Moreover, why even come over here to begin with? He could have remained in Japan, still operating, preparing himself for potential offensives from anyone who wanted to come after him, including myself. Then he could just repeat his usual mode of operation with just as strong a chance for victory. Strategically, Yagami's arrival in Gotham isn't smart. And Kira is far smarter than that."

A part of Nightwing was astounded that Batman had figured all this out, so quickly, given just how elusive and sly Kira had acted in the past, a wolf with sheep's skin blending into the herd. On the other hand, this was Batman, the same implacable sensei who had commanded his student to type down all the Sherlock Holmes stories in order to learn the art of detecting. When you had someone like that who gave excessive orders only after he had actually done them, watching him commit yet another extraordinary action was hardly anything new. _Maybe I'm taking him for granted _Dick thought. _Maybe we all are. I mean, who doesn't expect Batman to save the day? Sometimes he'll suffer a loss, but at the end of the day we all assume that he'll restore Gotham's balance. Still, I suppose its amazing to watch even Holmes taken on Moriarty. _

"Maybe it's pride?" Nightwing suggested. "Pride comes before the fall, doesn't it? And who's prouder than the Devil? I mean, better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven sums him up pretty well from what I've seen. From his point of view, if he takes out you, it'll be a nice feather in his cap."

"The pride point is a valid one," Batman said. "But Yagami has been able to temper it with his reason and restraint all these years. It's been his patient and ruthless discretion that enabled him to kill L and all his successors. Why should that change now?"

Dick thought it over. Certainly, Yagami was one of the proudest criminals around, a distinction that he had earned, Dick was sorry to say. If one looked at the accomplishments of Kira divorced from any moralistic perceptions, then it was evident that Yagami had done more in a few years what most of humanity lacked the nerve to do throughout their entire lives. Yagami was undoubtedly evil, but he was a great evil. Even with ethics figured into the equation, Yagami would stand as a tyrant who continually made major decisions : that in itself gave him ample cause to have an inflated sense of ego. But if Yagami had kept his pride in check all that time... well, then he had to have a sense of restraint comparable to Bruce's. Dick felt his stomach tighten a little bit at this disconcerting thought.

"Yagami's methods as of late have struck me as disconcerting as well," Batman added. "Specifically, the assault at the Ditko-Kirby Plaza. To put it simply, it was inadequate. If Light really is a genius, he would have known that Killgrave, Frieze, and all those mercs wouldn't have been enough to stop the Batman. I'm not trying to brag, Dick, but even the most inane of criminals must know that it takes far more than that to bring me down, even without knowing my past history. Apparently, I'm in the same league as Clark and Diana, or so I've been told. With all that said, Yagami's failed attack must have been intentional. Why? My theory is that he thought a move to Gotham to be a necessary tact, essential in order to bait me and then reel me in."

"Well, if his intention wasn't to kill you, what do you think it was?" Nightwing asked.

"I think that he had two ones," Batman said. "The first to deceive me into thinking that he's less intelligent than he actually is. That way, he can have a better chance at overthrowing me when he decides to go for broke. An antiquated stratagem, but an effective one nonetheless."

"And the second goal?" Dick asked.

Bruce paused, then sighed through his nostrils, the sound akin to the hissing and crackling of a paltry fire.

"To get into Arkham," Bruce said.

"What?!" Dick exclaimed. "You can't tell me that you actually believe that! I know Commissioner Gordon told us that Yagami was acting like he was being checked into a hotel and not an asylum, but I find it more than likely that he's just showing off some bravado. I mean, how can he take over Earth if he's locked in Hell?"

"I don't know, Dick," Bruce admitted. "But this is Yagami we're talking about. My L files say that he's deliberately lost and then regained his memories, killing Ryuzaki before he could voice his suspicions to the Kira Task Unit. He's successfully plotted the murders of all of L's successors. He's strong-armed both Luthor and the League of Assassins into doing his bidding, and he's kept me chasing after him for over a year. If anyone can pull something off something like orchestrating a revolution from a sanitarium, it's Yagami. And if he's acting like he's happy to be in Arkham, we have to assume that things are going his way."

"God in Heaven," Nightwing said. He sounded awed and horrified at once. "It never ends, does it?"

"Not so long as there's still breath in his body," Batman muttered. Somehow, his grim countenance clouded even more over while he said this.

"But there's still one thing I haven't been able to figure out," Dick said. "Kira's been executing criminals for years now, and he's been executing just about every type: everyone from the lowliest pimps to the richest inside traders. But so far as I know, he hasn't killed any of our freaks. Zsasz, Ivy, Woodrue... just about all of them are alive. So why would someone like Yagami, who gets a kick out of punishing the guilty, why wouldn't he have killed Joker and Two Face by now? They're arguably the two worst psychos on the continent, if not the planet.

"I've been thinking about that too, Dick," Bruce said, nodding. "Yagami might act dignified, but at the end of the day, he's just as twisted as the cream of the crap he hunts. That's why he hasn't had any moral quandaries with using criminals for his dirty work. Based on all that, I would say that Yagami probably plans to use several of our enemies against us. He'll probably end up trying to recruit followers for his agenda, and there's plenty there that would be willing."

"You think Yagami might try a super villain team-up thing?" Nightwing asked, a tolerably little scoff to his voice. "Isn't that old hat? I thought that since Yagami is new around these parts that he might go for something more, I don't know, refreshing, I guess."

"I think Yagami is capable of just about anything," Batman said. "But, worst case scenario, he decides to align himself with Joker or Two Face or whoever, he'll probably do it in such a way that even I won't see it coming." Batman paused. "The problem is that Yagami prefers controlling people to working with them. And I don't think that someone so conceited would stoop to becoming the partner of those he must believe to be beneath him. Still, whatever his plan may be, they tend to become fulfilled, and they tend to destroy anyone in his way, so we'll have to keep our eyes on him as best we can."

"Well, that shouldn't be too difficult," Nightwing said, sensing that now an appropriate time for positive thinking. So far as Dick knew (and Dick knew plenty about Bruce, more than probably even Bruce could imagine), Batman had at least a chance at stopping Kira from conquering humanity; the problem was that Bruce himself may not have known that. "Gordon already told the docs that Yagami's not to be trusted and that they need to have security on him 24/7. The moment that Yagami tries anything, security will be on him so fast that his head will spin. Provided that it isn't kicked off first, of course."

"I hope you're right about that, Dick," Batman said. "I really do. But I'm not sure you are. If the books I found are any indication, Yagami still has a few tricks left up his sleeve, maybe."

"What books?" Nightwing asked. "The Death Notes? I know that you're still looking for the second one, but we'll find it. With all of our magicians at work, Yagami can't keep it hidden for long. And you got Stephen Strange to look at your copy, right?"

"Along with Zatanna, John Constantine, and every other mystic that we know," Bruce said, nodding. "The Death Note is in good hands. But I'm not talking about those books. I'm talking about the ones I found in Yagami's room back at his mother's house."

"You broke into his mom's house?" Dick asked. "Is she a suspect now?"

"All available info says no," Bruce replied. "Sachiko Yagami is just a regular stay at home mother, now taking care of a traumatized daughter. Signs of depression, most likely due to absence of her son and husband."

Bruce curled his nose a little, and Dick didn't need to be a rocket scientist to know that familial abandonment was yet another factoid on the extensive list of reasons why Batman despised Kira. "My investigations into her phone calls and emails have revealed that she believes that Yagami is now in Metropolis, transferred over to their Kira Task Unit division after Light was the only one to survive Kira's murder of the Japanese team. He last contacted her about a week before we caught him, so I can't be sure how long it will take Mrs. Yagami to notice somethings awry. In any event, it didn't take me very long to find out all I needed to about her. Neither she nor Sayu Yagami have a thing to do with Kira."

"But I'm digressing," Batman said. "I wasn't talking about the Death Notes, Dick. The books I found in Yagami's room, the ones that have worried me, are books about magic. Not smoke and mirrors and illusions, but the paranormal and supernatural. In other words, the real deal. Books by Aleister Crowley, Carlos Castenada, John Whiteside Parsons, and the like. You have to understand: Yagami is a very logical thinker. While his stratagems are creative, his style is largely analytical. That's not too surprising if you think about it: Yagami used to care about rising in society, about overcoming obstacles and gaining prestige for his efforts. A number of humanity's defenders are magicians, but you know as well as I how the mystical is is dismiss in today's world. This leads to a disconcerting question: what is someone like Yagami doing with this kind of esoteric knowledge?"

"The Death Note," Dick said.

"Probably," Bruce concurred. "We know little to nothing about it, even with all it's rules now known to us. All of our tests have indicated that the Death Note isn't made of any material known to Earth, but that's about it. We still have no idea where it came from or who created it. L's files and the book itself said that a shinigami should come with it, but-"

"A what?" Dick asked.

"A death god," Bruce explained. "Like a grim reaper. L said that each Death Note is used by one, but that they can give them to whoever they want. According to both L and the Death Note itself, since I touched the book, it's now mine, and I should have seen a shinigami by now. Because I haven't, my suspicion is that Kira still has plans for the book's original owner."

Nightwing paused. "You've always emphasized Holmes' cardinal rule of detecting:", he said, "'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'. The problem here is, we don't know what's possible and what's impossible anymore. I used to think that it was impossible to kill someone by writing their name down into a note book. With something like the Death Note, who knows exactly what Kira can and can't do?"

"I doubt we can, and that's what makes this all the more difficult," Batman said. "For all we know, Yagami could raise the dead, recruit more reapers, or bend time and space with that book. Only hypothetical, of course, but before you point out that Yagami has done nothing to indicate that he's capable of those things, understand what a sloppy move it is to leave clues out in the open, especially when someone like Batman is known the world over for his detective skills. And if I've learned anything about Yagami and the way he operates, it's that he isn't sloppy in the least. He's many things, but sloppy isn't one of them."

"Again, I think you're overestimating Yagami," Nightwing interjected. "He might be a devil, but he's not literally The Devil. With Batman Inc, the JLA, and all the other masks across the world, Kira can't get too far. We've got him beat, Bruce. You seem to be the only one refusing to believe that."

"So then why does it seem like Yagami is the only one happy he's there!" Batman half-retorted, half-snapped. Dick could tell from the strain in Bruce's voice that he was trying hard to restrain his weathered temper, and he decided not to press the issue of his tone.

Still, Batman had a good point about Arkham and Yagami. Arkham had broken some of the world's most inimical madmen before, and even someone like Yagami wouldn't be disinclined to committing suicide rather than dwell within the asylum's haunted confines. Unless Yagami had a plan. Unless that clever, scheming monster had a plan.

"Dispatch, this is Lieutenant Kon," A tired voice broke through the police radio nestled in Nightwing's back pocket. "The fundamentalists are trying to burn down the Slayer concert again. Please join your team at the front gates of the Mignola Hall. Over."

Nightwing placed the receiver near his mouth and said, "Roger that Lieutenant Kon. I'll be there in 15. Over." Dick sighed as he put the receiver in his back pocket, "I gotta take this. The bible thumpers have been especially destructive this year. Slayer should be able to hold their own for a while, but I'm afraid Araya is going to start using that samurai sword again. I'll see you later, OK?"

Dick turned to go but stopped abruptly when Bruce said, with half a note of urgency, "Wait for just one moment."

"What it is it?" Dick asked, stopping.

Bruce didn't look at Dick for a while, giving the surrogate son the distinct impression that something both new and unusual was wrong with his teacher. A small knot formed in Nightwing's stomach as he came to an unsettling revelation: _If someone like Kira can make someone like Batman act this way... then maybe Bruce is right. Maybe there really is more to Yagami than meets the eye. _

Bruce opened his mouth to speak, made a noise, but then closed his mouth again. A few seconds went by before he began to speak again:

"Dick... I know that I'm not... 'partial' to discussing myself," Batman said finally. "Part of it is that I've been trained to speak no more than I have to. 'Those who do not talk know, and those who talk do not know', and all that. But... the other part is probably that... that I don't like to bother people with my problems. I don't like to bother anyone, period. But this... what's been happening to me recently... it could have ripple effects, Dick... it could affect everyone I know, for better or for worse. And it's one thing if it affects only me, but... I can't let my... issues affect my friends and my... family."

Bruce was silent for a few more moments, and Dick could tell that his sensei was having trouble expressing his thoughts. Like always, he was cautious about what he said and what he didn't say. The Dark Knight was as awe-inspiring as they came, but Nightwing believed that there was still a frightened child inside of Bruce, scared even decades later of being hurt again. The irony was tangible: psychotic madmen and depraved monsters couldn't make Gotham's big bad bat drop a sweat, but the idea of idea of opening himself up to a new friend, or, God forbid, a new lover, made him freeze up like a spooked cat.

"I'm getting older, Dick," Bruce finally said. Dick felt his heart drop a little, and he found himself glad that he couldn't see his teacher's unmasked face. The student was unsure as to how well he could handle seeing his master's potentially weathered face. Nightwing thought that it might be like seeing someone once in their prime lag and lag until they eventually became stale and depleted: Ali becoming slower, Jagger aging, S. Thompson wearing down, and all those other things that should not be. "I keep getting older, and I keep locking up the rogues, and they keep coming up with new ones. Something has to change, Dick. I don't think I can keep on the way I have. Not anymore. Not with Yagami around."

"So what are you going to change?" Dick asked. It came out of his mouth before he could stop it: he didn't want to sit through another one of "When you assume you make an ass out of you and me" lectures. Still, Bruce wasn't one to share his worries unless he had some sort of solution in mind.

Bruce didn't speak for what seemed to be many minutes but was probably only about thirty seconds max, the tension in the room giving the pause a certain weight. Dick became even more concerned: it wasn't unusual for Batman to act taciturn, but it was very unusal for him to be at a loss for words.

"I think a path has been laid out for me, Dick," Bruce finally said. He spoke slowly, as if doing his best to describe something abstract and vague, as if he didn't completely understand it himself. "I've been on that path for a long time now. I don't think I'm nearing it's end yet, but... I do think something is going to happen soon. Something that'll change me utterly. Something I'll need to bring down Yagami. You remember that philosopher, Joseph Campbell, the one who wrote about the metaphors and philosophies of mythologies? He had a theory about something called the 'path to bliss'. It's basically what a person is meant to do, what fulfills their potential and spirituality. You know everyone is good at at least one thing? That one thing is usually the means of traveling the path. Painting was Van Gogh's path. Astronomy for Sagan. The guitar for Hendrix."

Bruce broke off and swallowed. He appeared to be tired yet firm at once, like an aged tree that had had grown several stories high and roots several leagues beneath the dirt. He pulled back his mask, moving a hand through his hair. The lines under his eyes were more pronounced than usual.

"My path hasn't been an easy one, Dick," Bruce said. "Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it. Either way, it's my path and my path alone. But I don't have to be Batman, Dick, and sometimes I would like nothing more than to transfer my burdens to someone else. You've seen what my line of work has done to me, what our line of work has done to us. If I wanted, I could do just about anything I wanted: I could become a full time CEO, an architect, biologist, sculptor, whatever. But no matter which one of those livelihoods I choose, I won't be meant to do it. Because I'm meant to be Batman. Only now, if I'm right about all this, if my intuition really is right about what's going to happen sooner rather than later, then eventually..."Bruce broke off again, rubbed a hand against his stubble, creasing his eyes in thought.

"How does this all make you feel?" Dick asked, trying to help out, attempting to draw out his master's answers. "Can you summarize any of this, give me a general idea? Ballpark figure?"

Batman thought for a moment. Then he said: It's like I've been sleeping for years, Dick. Like I've been dreaming for years now, dreaming a nightmare that began the night my parents were murdered. But now... now I think I might wake up."

Dick weighed his next words carefully: Bruce telling others how he felt was rarer than a decent Michael Bay flick, and he didn't want any ill spoken words to deter the oft closed Bruce from opening up again. Still, it wouldn't take too long before Slayer deemed it morally acceptable to stomp the hell out of their more vitriolic critics.

"Bruce, I have to go, but I promise you that we'll talk about this later," Dick said. "But know that whatever you think is happening to you, whatever... transformation you think you may be going through, know that I'm here for you. And more than that, we're all here for you: me, Tim, Alfred, Barbara, even Damian, although you're the last person he'll admit it to. We're you're family, Bruce, and

it really doesn't matter if you want to bother us with your problems or not. Your problems are our problems, and our problems are your problems. That's how families work, Bruce. That's how we'll always work. Yagami... he has no family. He once did, and he threw it all away, and for what? For just a little bit of insignificant pride. And that's why we're going to beat him, Bruce. Because the people who care only about themselves... they're the loneliest ones of them all."

Dick turned to go again. "I'll see you again later tonight, Bruce," he said.

"One more thing," Batman said.

"Hmm?" Dick said.

Batman paused, as if reconsidering. Then he stared at his student dead in the eyes. Dick has seen much in those eyes over the years. Rage. Disappointment. Grief. But now, looking at his master's white, he saw something that he had never seen before, something that took the breath from his body and the ground from under his feet.

He saw shame.

"I think Yagami might know who I am," Bruce said.

A series of beeps sounded from the computer, cutting the conversation short. In a bold, orange font the initials TS appeared on the computer's screen. Ace perked up his head, barked, and then began to wag his tail.

"Patch him in," Batman said to the computer.

An image of a cynically handsome man with wavy hair and a goatee appeared. The background of the setting made him look like he was standing in a research laboratory of sorts. Batman was immediately struck by how unusual his ally appeared: instead of the usual smart-ass half-smile, his face was pensive, foreboding, ominous.

"What's up, Tony?" Batman asked Tony Stark aka Iron Man.

"The worst case scenario is what's up, Bruce," Tony said. "It's the Bat Wraith. The prototype is gone, Bruce. Someone stole our mecha."

_NEXT- WELL, I DON'T KNOW WHEN, BUT EVENTUALLY ON THE LIGHT IN THE ABYSS! (Probably) How does Batman know Light? What are the origins of the Death Note? What the hell is a Bat Wraith? Does Light really know who Batman is? Are all the references to Nietzsche a sad attempt by the author to show off how smart he is even though he keeps forgetting where he lives? And has mankind finally hit its peak with the invention of the dorito taco? (Yes). Tune in next time, same Bat fanfic, same Bat whenever I get around to it!_

_It's not too difficult to get into Death Note: what's probably essential to enjoying the riveting saga is the anime, manga, and two live action movies (the latter is arguably not required, depending on who you ask, but still well worth your time). Batman on the other hand? Batman is a franchise approximately seventy years old, running the gamut from comics to movies to video games. In the case that some of you, my dear readers, are more familiar with Death Note than you are Batman, I've compiled a list of what I consider to be the ten best Batman stories along with some of the other stories that are worth your perusal. If you're just dipping your toes into this particular pool though, I have to recommend some of the non-graphic novel Batman stories, namely the Christopher Nolan trilogy (buy Dark Knight Rises the moment it comes out: they have earned our cash), the recent Arkham video games (the hours will drop like flies), the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated series of the nineties (AKA simply The Animated Series or TAS), and the animated films Mask of the Phantasm (super under rated) and Under The Red Hood (I hated that they brought Jason Todd back, but this movie was great enough to make me forget all that). But the real meat and potatoes are to be found in the comics, and it is the several masterpieces I'm about to list that have made generations forget about Batman fighting aliens on distant planets and Bat-Mite. Enjoy!  
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_THE TOP TEN (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)  
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_1. THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: Before Frank Miller hit rock bottom with his devotion to objectivism, DKR showed a Batman stripped of all his consumer-friendly facades, a Batman rebellious enough to challenge even ol' Supes and Uncle Ronnie. The fascist overtones are somewhat off-putting, but this comic broke ground like no other and gained respect for a character previously held with much contempt.  
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_2. Year One: Unlike DKR, Miller exhibits a Batman that's less psychopathic and more professional. That's probably because a significant portion of this story focuses on Jim Gordon, the one good cop surrounded by a horde of corrupt pigs. The story and art are superb and display many of the film noir tropes that later appear prominently in the film Batman Begins.  
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_3. The Killing Joke: This is largely a philosophical tract explaining the Joker (or, rather, a hypothetical explanation for the Joker). Like in Watchmen, Alan Moore brilliantly dissects and examines the duality between comedy and tragedy as well as the thin line that divides them. The artwork is chilling, and the ending shook me to the core. Buy this ASAP.  
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_4. Hush: I consider this the third and final act of a trilogy written by the immensely gifted Jeph Loeb. The absence of Tim Sale (the artist who worked on the earlier Long Halloween and Dark Victory) is a loss, but the incredible artwork of Jim Lee makes up for it in spades. This tightly written and deeply engaging plot culminates in the birth of Hush himself, my favorite Batman villain and one of the best comic book antagonists to come out in recent years.  
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_5. Return of Bruce Wayne: Maybe this isn't the best written Batman story ever (although Grant Morrison is a god and this is written just about as well as any other story he's written- which is very), but the plot... BUT THE PLOT! This is an Elseworlds story that's actually a cannon story, showing Batman as he travels through time itself, featuring everything from a caveman Batman to a pirate Batman to a space monster Batman! Now let's get a samurai Batman story going!  
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_6. The Long Halloween: Two-Face is one of those tragic sides to Batman that just refuses to die, and this superbly written and drawn tale elevates him to a level of unnerving sympathy inapplicable to most of Bat's rogues. The noir conventions are fitting without being overwrought, and the plot will keep you guessing over and over until the ending hits you with a wallop.  
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_7. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth: Dave McKean + Aleister Crowley + Jung + Lewis Carroll = one of the trippiest things I've ever read. You may need to read this more than once to really get it, but, love it or hate it (I elect for the former), this is one of the most unique Batman stories ever told and absolutely necessary for understanding the psychology of the character. Bong sold separately.  
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_8. Tower of Babel: This is actually a JLA story, but it reveals the flaws of Batman that are probably necessary to truly comprehending the character. You can't be a bad-ass without being an sshole, it would seem. The art is mediocre (and in some cases even deplorable [this coming from a guy who can only draw stick figures]), but the story and Batman's interactions with his teammates proficiently compensates for it.  
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_9. The Cult: This is as underrated as they come, a nightmare of a story that has Batman lose his mind and then struggle to regain it. The social critique regarding the homeless is penetrating without being excessive, and the graphic violence is perfectly suited to this kind of brutal story telling.  
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_10. Venom: No, not Batman versus the monster that tries to eat Spiderman's brains. More like Batman becomes a junkie. Yeah. In several ways, a hell of a lot more dispiriting. But if you want to see the real measure of a man (or woman), check this one out. The ending may leave you cold (in more than one way), but you won't think the struggle to be useless.  
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_NOT THE BEST, BUT STILL WELL WORTH READING:  
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_Dark Victory  
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_Son of the Demon  
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_The Hiketeia (This is actually a Wonder Woman story, but Batman plays a critical [and revealing] role in it. Rucka is a writer of such caliber that seeing Diana knocking Bruce around silly will seem natural, and not at all infuriating [OK, maybe a little])  
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_R.I.P.  
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_Gotham Central (This series actually focuses far more on the GCPD than on Bats, but the sparse amount of exposure Batman gets actually gives him an elevated, urban legend type of status)  
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_Cacophony and The Widening Gyre (Kevin Smith stumbles here and there, but Ono is the best thing since sliced bread and some of the dialogue is magnificent. Looking forward to the sequel)  
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_Red Son (Russian Anarchist Batman. That's all that needs to be said.)  
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_Court of the Owls  
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_The Black Mirror  
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_Gothic  
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	6. Chapter VI: I Put A Spell On You

**CHAPTER VI**

**I PUT A SPELL ON YOU**

There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.  
>- Friedrich Nietzsche<p>

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.

-Buddha

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

-William Butler Yeats

**MEANWHILE, IN GREENWICH, NEW YORK**

"We're agreed then," the sorcerer said. "The Death Note is the most evil weapon in all of creation."

Three figures stood in the innermost confines of what was known as the Sanctum Sanctorum. This particular chamber of the magical three story house was one of the most used and best decorated parts of the house. All around the resident and his visitors were incense sticks, tribal masks, religious talismans, several Buddhist shrines, and enough Tibetan relics to make a museum curator drool.

The magical house belonged to one Stephen Strange, known to his friends and foes as Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme of the known universe and one of the most powerful of beings in all the galaxies. Days ago he and two other of his occult colleagues received a Death Note from Batman with the request to have it studied and analyzed. That had also marked the first time since Batman had spoken fully about who Kira was and why he was locked up the way he was. The book was magic, Batman had said. He needed magicians who could unlock the mysteries of the book, and he needed them ASAP. Given Strange's past experiences of astral projection, demon invocations, and magical surgery upon the universe itself, he didn't think the note book explanation to be too farfetched.

Strange was used to wearing his cape and magus outfit when formally conversing with his peers, but today he was speaking with two mages that he knew especially well, so he decided to make an exception to the rule. On this day, he chose to go casual and donned a gray NYU sweater, blue jeans, and red sneakers. The white in his dark hair gave him a mature type of handsomeness; dressed in his usual sorcerer garbs, it would have given him a further air of mystery. However, the Death Note presented enough mysteries even for one such as Strange, and he knew it wouldn't kill him to get a bit of reprieve from the supernatural, even in such a minute way as clothing.

"And it's not just because of Yagami either," said the woman in the group. She was Zatanna Zatara, a member of the homi magi race, a magician with magic in her blood dating back for centuries. As a magician, she, like Strange, was one of the most powerful forces in the known universe. However, unlike Strange, Zatanna was a young woman in her twenties while the good doctor was a mature man somewhere in his fifties. What that meant was that, even if Zatanna were as strong as God itself, she was still plenty green behind her ears.

Like Strange, she too decided to go for an informal look: instead of donning her usual illusionist costume, she wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a black shirt with the words NERV with a fig leaf next to it in red. Strange and the other man in the room failed to perceive the cultural significance of the t-shirt. Though aware of her inexperience, magic was her bread and butter, so she was inclined to give her two cents.

"Personally, I don't think that this is a case of Yagami becoming evil due to his use of a morally neutral book," she continued. "If anything, Kira's use of the Death Note reveals its true nature. But the book is far older than Kira, and in some ways its even stronger than he is. This book has an energy all of its own. Yagami definitely became evil because of the choices he made with this book, but it was undoubtedly impure even before he got his hands on it. Who knows what psychopaths have already tried this thing out? Either way, our findings match Will Magnus': whatever this thing is, it isn't from Earth. Could the Death Note be both cosmic and supernatural?"

"You know as well as us that the line between magic and science is as thin as the razor's edge, Zatanna," the third man said. "Science is the off-shoot of magic, like. But this Death Note is old- eldritch old like- and its bleedin _chi_! It smells like a piece of fried dog crap, that it does!"

This man, a foxy and sly veteran with the nicotine caked voice, was John Constantine. For this occasion, he was dressed as he usually was: a brown trench coat, white shirt, brown slacks, and a red tie. In one hand, he held a cigarette, which he smoked in and out of conversation. In the other hand, he held a pint of Newcastle and did not seem to be bothered by the fact that he was the only one in the room drinking. He was blonde, his hair short and slicked back, with blue-green eyes, somewhere in his forties. Zatanna thought him to be handsome in a Sting sort of way.

"According to the instructions, there should be a Death God to go along with this thing," John continued. "You said that the Bat caught Kira, right, Zatanna? If this bloke really is the Devil himself, then it stands to reason that Kira has the reaper wrapped around his finger, like. May be that Kira is still plotting then. Believe me, I've seen the Bat once, and that is someone you can't stop plotting against."

"That could very well be true, John," Strange remarked. "And if that is the case, then we need to consider Yagami a very active foe, even if he is locked up. Have our independent investigations uncovered anything useful?"

"Not on my end," Zatanna sighed. "I've asked Daimon Hellstrom, Johnny Blaze and, Brother Voodoo, but they've never seen or heard of the thing before. The only thing useful I could get from Jericho is that he may have heard some cryptic hints about a ''book of death" written here and there in his magic books. Like that doesn't tell us what we already know. What about you, John? Have you got anything?"

"Bollocks is what I've got," John replied. "If the demon plane knows anything, they're not saying jack. Doesn't matter how much I threaten or intimidate: most of the ghosts and spirits are afraid of us, but I think that they're even more scared of Kira. Besides, we can tell that they're all quite interested in whatever hell Yagami is cooking up back in Arkham."

"I've had about as much luck as you have, John," Strange said. "I've travelled in the worlds between worlds, and I've summoned as many demons as I'm able to restrain. The only one who's been of any serious help has been my old friend and colleague, Jason Blood. Though Blood wanted his demon half to reveal more, Etrigan the demon was willing to only recite this rhyme:

_The true Devil is a Man_

_And One that likes to pull strings_

_Too much isn't enough_

_For the Beast that devours everything_

_A Man challenges this monster?_

_One who is demon and god?_

_Then blood shall rain from the sky_

_Until he finishes his job._

_The future is clear_

_And many will suffer until its culmination_

_The Bat will never stop bleeding_

_Until He reaches His Illumination_

Strange paused. "Unfortunately, I have no idea what that means," he said. "That's Etrigan for you: as cryptic as ever when it suits his needs. Still, it would appear that Batman is central to the conflict. That's not too surprising: just saying Yagami's name while he handed me the Death Note was enough to make his entire posture rigid. I don't pretend to know what goes on in Bruce's mind, but it would appear that he hates Kira more than anybody he's hated in quite some time."

"John, I'm sorry I have to ask, but should you really be smoking?" Doctor Strange suddenly asked. "The Eye of Agamotto will dispel any acrid fumes away from me and to the Realm of the Ogdru Jahad, and Zatanna can always transport any nicotine damage into the lair of Dormammu. But from what I've heard, the last time you smoked too much you were stricken with cancer and nearly sent to Hell. I don't mean to pry, but..."

"You needn't worry yourself about that, mate," John said. "Smartened up rightly is what I did. Tibetan spell I dug up, like. Gives me Hell insurance, to give it a name. If I croak but go all peaceful like without any anger or fear, I'll finally be able to leave this dump of a realm. Technically, we're shooting for the formless realms, but we also fancy anything without pus spewing abominations."

"Sounds like you've been reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead," Zatanna stated.

John shrugged casually. "In our trade, it helps to know the exit doors," he said.

"In any event, there's still the Death Note to deal with," Strange said, getting the discussion back on track. "The most logical course of action then is to burn up this accursed book before-"

"No," Zatanna interupted with an apologetic look. "I've already spoke to Bruce about this, and I've thought about it myself. For all we know, the fact that Bruce has a Death Note may be why Kira hasn't used the other one against him: Batman is extremely healthy, so he could probably write down Yagami's name in the span of a heart attack. Then again, Kira could kill Bruce in other ways with the same book, but the fact that he hasn't yet may mean that he wants Bruce alive for God only knows what."

"That's assuming that Kira knows Batman is Bruce Wayne," Strange said.

"Bruce Wayne is Batman?!" Constantine exclaimed, looking shocked. "I thought the guy just funded the Bat! Like Batman Inc and all that corporate stuff!"

"Welcome to the world of masks and spandex, John", Zatanna said.

"But do you know that Kira knows who Batman really is?" Strange continued.

"No, but the Kira case has been almost Bruce's pet project for over a year now," Zatana said. "He means to keep that book, just like he means to keep kryptonite locked up in his cave. And, as a metahuman, I can't blame him for that. Batman may be Batman, but he's still only a mortal. And if Kira really does know who Batman is-"

"Again, you mention the possibility that Yagami might know the secret identity of Batman," Strange interjected. "Why is this?"

"Call it a woman's intuition," Zatanna said. "If that's not good enough, call it a magical woman's intuition. Look, Bruce has fought plenty of criminals over the years, right? He still hates Joker, Hush, Bane, and all of his other enemies, but he's also become used to their existence. The hatred isn't so sharp like when he first encountered them; you can tell by watching him operate that he's tamed whatever fury they arise in him. But Yagami is new. Yagami is different. Yagami is unprecedented. And if you observe Bruce while Kira is the topic of discussion, you can see that this new hatred is more raw and more vitriolic compared to all the rest. So if Batman really hates Kira that much, we should assume that there's something significant between the two of them. It might be that Yagami knows Batman's true identity. It might just be that Bruce knows Kira's true identity. It may even be both."

"Well, I'm not going to be the arse that goes and tells the bleedin' Bat that he can't have the Death Note," Constantine said. "So if you want to take the book away from him, you'll have to do it on your own, Stephen. I've already got neo nazi werewolves on me plate as it is; we're not so peachy keen about confronting the son of Dracula and Bruce Lee."

"I agree with you, John" Strange said. "If Batman wants to be the one responsible for guarding this Death Note, then that is fine with me. Personally, I don't even like the thing being in my home. Moreover, despite what cryptic hints Bruce has sparingly given us, it does appear as if it's best to let one detective hunt down another. With the Death Note in Batman's hands, the scales could even out. And though it may be a given, Bruce is one of the few people we can trust to keep the Death Note secret and hidden."

Doctor Strange paused. "What concerns me the most," he said, "Is that we haven't heard about the Death Note earlier. Zatanna, you're young, so that's understandable, but John and I have been magicians for decades now. How is it that none of us have known that the death gods are using these note books? And how long have Mictlantecuhtli, Hel, Izanami, and the like been using them?"

From somewhere upstairs came the sound of a ruckus, interrupting Strange; even between all those feet of wood, plaster, and granite, the sounds could clearly be distinguished as alarmed, upset, and turbulent.

"What in the name of-" Doctor Strange began.

The Sorcerer Supreme was interrupted when something crashed through the ceiling, a shower of wood chips and fine dust accompanying the fall.

Constantine, Zatanna, and Strange all quickly made their way to the fallen. The victim of the fall was a quietly handsome man, a Tibetan monk with a shaved head and a traditional green Chinese shirt and green pants. However, these clothes were considerably tattered and more than one bruise marred the man's otherwise boyish features.

"Wong?! Who did this to you?!" Strange exclaimed, holding his best friend and servant's head up. "Who has trespassed into the Sanctorum?!"

Wong's exhausted, drooping eyes shot open at once, as if controlled by the power of the questions posed to him. Wong was a martial arts adept who feared little, including death. However, all present were aware that there were fates worse than death, and the terror in Wong's eyes made Strange realize that whatever had arrived was worse than shuffling off one's mortal coil.

"It's Doom!" Wong shouted.

Something massive jumped into the hole, seemingly intent on crushing all those below him upon impact. Strange, placing Wong over a shoulder, teleported himself out of the way as something large, green, and silver descended from the hole. Zatanna teleported herself several feet away; taking a more pragmatic approach, John leaped over a desk and took cover.

Where Wong once lied was now a new figure, landing on one foot and one knee. This staggeringly large visitor was encased in steel armor from head to toe, and a green hood and cape clasped to his neck fell upon the floor. The only thing human that could be seen of this man were two ferocious jade eyes burning like a green fire behind the metal, a midnight funeral pyre.

"I hope that you will act wisely, Strange," said Victor Von Doom, standing up to over six feet. "I have come here for one and only one thing. Give me the Death Note, and I will spare the lives of you and-"

"Pots, Mo-" Zatanna broke in. The situation was heading south rapidly, and she wanted to end this yesterday. With Doom on the scene, the once placid discussion had now turned into a full-blown emergency.

"POTS, ARATTZA!" Doom roared over Zatanna.

Zatanna froze, as commanded. In terms of raw power, Zatanna was one of the strongest beings on the planet. However, even with that being the case, she was still a young woman in her twenties, still impressionable and still tender-footed. Thus, it was understandable that she was more than unnerved by this iron giant, which enabled him to supersede her volume. And, like the ruthless goliath that he was, Doom intended to take advantage of Zatanna's weaknesses as much as he possibly could.

Doom shot a beam of eldritch energy at the paralyzed Zatanna, but Strange fairly leaped in front of her, activating a force field and repelling the energy in the process. Priceless magic tomes, tools, and bric-a-brac rained on all four of the magicians as the magical house struggled to contain the mounting energy. Moving quickly for a man his age, Strange then leapt at Doom, magick energy swirling around his hands and his feet.

Not wanting anymore of his sanctum and its invaluable contents to be endangered yet wanting to end this fight as quickly as possible, Dr. Strange began to throw a flurry of martial arts kicks and punches at Doom. Though the sorcerer's scarred hands would never allow him to resume his career as a medical doctor, they were surprisingly adept at the combative arts. This was due largely to Wong: as Dr. Strange the magician was master to Wong the servant, so too was Wong the martial arts master of Strange the student. Only recently had Strange learned to combine his kung fu with his magick, and Doom was as deserving as any other opponent to try to his newfound repertoire on.

Strange came at Doom admiringly, delivering punches and kicks far faster than most men his age (let alone any age) could. Doom, however, came back at Strange with just as much vigor and vitality. Strange was more than unnerved that someone as massive as Doom could move so swiftly and accurately, but he shut this thought down and emptied his mind to think clearly. One mistake, and the Latverian tyrant could and would destroy everything around him.

Fist was blocked by fist and foot was repelled by foot as the two magicians engaged in combat. "Your pitiful resistance bores me, Strange," Doom said, blocking a crescent kick. "You are old, far older than I, and you cannot keep up this defiance for long. It is the Death Note that I want, sorcerer. Again, deliver it to me, and I shall spare all of your lives. Refuse, and I will grind you into the dust."

_How the hell did Doom find out about that blasted book?_ Strange wondered, anxiety assailing him alongside the thought. Picturing Doom with the Death Note was like picturing Luthor with the Green Lantern ring: utterly fubar.

"Doom, listen to me!" Doctor Strange shouted, dodging a punch. "The Death Note is a weapon that exceeds all known evil! In anyone's hands, it will bring only destruction and despair! In your hands, you will only ruin what life you have left! The book may be evil, but I know from helping you save your mother that there's still good in you! Give this fight up before we both kill each other!"

"Your contrived concern for my well-being is most amusing, Strange," Doom said, throwing an elbow that Strange repelled. "But while Victor Von Doom may bow to no man, Kira has been able to bring about a global order I have once been able to only dream of. In your hands, the Death Note would only rot. In the hands of Kira, Latveria will finally become the world's one and only superpower. This Kira has promised me. And with the ineffectual actions of both you and your peers, I am more inclined to declare my support for the new god."

_Damn, even with Yagami behind bars, Kira still possesses the ability to manipulate monsters like Doom? _Strange thought as the dark magus blocked a mid-level kick. _Just how far does Yagami's fingers reach?!_

Strange saw Doom prepare for a close encounter eldritch blast, so he leaped back before the blast could touch him. The leap was around fifteen meters to the right, enabling the beam to pass him by. Strange then zoomed in on Doom, light magenta power swirling around his hands, now in a _karana mudra _position. Strange didn't intend to kill Doom with his magic attack, but he did intend to bring him as close to it as he could. Doctor Strange knew that it was a morally dubious prospect, but then Doom was a ruthless titan who wouldn't stop if he had at least one drop of energy left in him.

Suddenly, something struck Strange in his back violently, forcing him forward into a stumbling motion. Strange would have thought more about the inflammatory pain now coursing its way though his back, but the sudden placing of Doom's hand on his throat precluded further thought on the manner. Strange was too dazed to feel Doom place his left hand on his back, lift him u with the right and then slam him back down onto his back. Strange possessed enough virility not to pass out, but the red hot pain that flared in his midsection choked whatever cries of suffering he could have and would have uttered.

"What has just occurred, shaman," Doom said, standing over Strange and appearing to be several feet higher than he actually was "Is that that beam was heat seeking and not even you, Strange, have eyes in the back of you head.

Doom kicked Strange's prone body, causing the latter to sail and crash right into Zatanna. The two fell over a table, thus breaking it in the process, and were subsequently showered by a pile of magic knick-knacks.

"Because you have helped me free my mother from the clutches of Mephisto, I shall allow you to live, Strange," Doom said. "Ah, truly, that magic spell was an impeccable gift from Kira. But I am getting ahead of myself. Where is the Englishman? Where is he who is known as the "Constant One"?"

"I'm right over here, mate," John said, emerging from behind a twenty foot high Buddha statue. In one hand, he held the Death Note. The other hand he kept in a pocket of his coat. "Don't shoot, alright? I'm willing to parlay with you, if that's what you want. But if you try to pull over some bollocks on me, and I'll burn this bloody thing with me lighter. How much do you want to bet that I didn't douse this thing in lighter fluid while you were fighting Strange and Zatanna?"

"Ah, yes, the proletariat magician," Doom said crossing his arms, seemingly not perturbed by Constantine's threats. "I've heard many a tale about you and your cleverness, Constantine. Do you truly desire to match your little tricks against the brute force that is Von Doom?"

"Can't say that I do, mate," Constantine answered, hiding his bleeding fingers in his pocket. "With a little more time, I might have been able to summon an ifrit to stall you, but in a straight to straight fight? You've got me nicked, I'll admit it."

"It is refreshing to meet one with enough sense to recognize the uselessness of defying me," Doom said. "For that, I will generously spare your life. And all that I command in return is that you hand over the Death Note. This is as magnanimous as you will find me today, magus."

"See, now, I would," John said, buying time, "But, see, the thing here is-"

John cut himself short and, with a bark of intimidated courage, flung his bleeding hand at Doom.

Droplets of crimson hit Doom's eyes and some of the skin around them. Doom replied by falling to one knee, screaming in agony. Despite the fire burning all around Doom's head, he retaliated by flashing a _mano cornuta _hand signal at force sent the Liverpool native crashing horizontally into one of Dr. Strange's book-cases, cracking it in the process. Constantine uttered a sharp cry of pain as his spine met the wood, but it was undone by Dr. Doom's own cries of apoplectic agony.

"CONSTANTNE, YOU BASTARD!" Doom roared. "I WILL MAKE YOU DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS BEFORE I AM THROUGH WITH YOU!"

Doom's gauntlets clawed at his eyes, trying to smear away the blood. His attempts proving futile, Doom fell on his last resort: he removed his mask and flung it away.

What John saw underneath that mask chilled his blood and churned his stomach, leaving an awed sense of horror in its wake. True, the English magician was no stranger to the uglier bits of magic and the more sordid parts of life. In a career spanning more than twenty years, he had encountered hellspawn, vampires, and serial killers. When you lived that kind of a lifestyle, a little bit of the ultra-violence became second-hand. However, what John saw behind Doom's mask was ugliness beyond description, that rare type of facial repulsiveness that matched the darkness of the owner's heart. Constantine could fell the pastrami sandwich he had eaten earlier begin to rise in his throat, but he swallowed as much saliva as he could to keep the vomit down.

Well aware that time was of the essence, John shouted, "Aeternam quae exstincta non est posita, ET ALIENUM MORTE MORIATUR SAECULA!"

Whether or not Doom was aware of it, a red light began to glow in a circle around him. Lines within that circle then began to light up. The lines formed an intricate symbol; Doom, despite being caught in the throes of agony, momentarily recognized his new predicament.

"No-" Doom began.

But it was too late. The red light had now completely engulfed the Latverian tyrant, and he roared like a proud lion caught in a trap. The light contracted, sealing in Doom, becoming smaller and smaller until the red light eventually became a small red dot, and then faded away into nothingness.

Constantine got back up to his feet, groaning in pain. Cracking his neck, he eyed the location where Strange and Zatanna had been thrown: underneath a pile of books, charms, and broken table fragments.

"Unless you two are doin' the dirt, you can get up now," John said to the pile of debris.

The broken table shifted, and Strange and Zatanna emerged from within, scratched and scathed but otherwise intact.

"What just happened?" Zatanna asked. "Where's Doom?"

"And where is Wong?" Strange asked, a bit of panic hiding in his otherwise steady voice.

Constantine lit a new cig with his clean hand, then moved a pile of books around with his bloody hand, crouching down on his knees. Underneath about forty or so esoteric tomes was Wong, still battered and bruised but nothing that a little yoga and pot wouldn't fix.

"So Doom didn't slaughter us all after all," Wong said, sounding drained. "Thanks to be to Buddha."

"Thanks be to Buddha?" John asked, arching an eyebrow. "What about thanks be to John?"

"May you shine with bliss eternally," Wong replied.

"I'll take that as a thank you," John said. He helped Wong to his feet, cringing. "Don't think that's supposed to snap. Sorted, then: I'm getting smashed tonight. Bloody well earned it."

"And our thanks, among other things," Strange said. "But how did you do it, John? How did you get rid of Doom?"

John pointed his clean finger to seemingly random blood patterns on the floor. "While you and Zatanna were off doing your tango with the Tin Man, I had to go and hide myself," he explained. "Not that I was trying to escape or anything like that: we just needed to come up with a plan. Then I remembered something: I've got demon blood running through me. Long story short, I once accepted a blood transfusion from Nergal in order to speed up my healing and to finish a fight. Admittedly, it's… a bit bloody spooky that I've got this stuff in me, but it's come in handy before. I've been able to poison vampires and to control djinn, among other things, with it. Then I remembered something that Stephen once told me: that Doom had built his armor in order to ward off attacks by demons. So I figured that since Doom never took the hint from Darth Vader to cover up his entire face, a wee bit of my blood in his eyes might be enough to buy me some time to pull off a spell. Risky, I know, but my theory was verified when Doom hit me with the _mano cornuta_ which only works against demons. Anyway, hiding gave me enough time to make the sigils, sending him straight to R'lyeh, the city of chaos. " He inhaled his cigarette once more. "Knowing him, he'll be able to escape and gain access back to this realm even without his mask protecting him."

There was a beat.

"I would say that that has to be one of the most stunningly shrewd maneuvers I've ever heard anyone pull off," Strange eventually said. "But then, I know you quite well, John."

Constantine shrugged. "We aim to please," he said.

"At the very least, you've bought us all some time," Zatanna said. "With the element of surprise no longer on Doom's side, he's going to find it a lot harder to sneak into the santorum. Which brings up an interesting question: How was Doom even able to get into the house? Don't you have talismans protecting every inch of your home, Stephen?"

"Indeed I do, Zatanna," Strange said, placing a hand on his chin in thought. "Someone with Doom's utterly impure karma shouldn't have been able to attack us. In theory, an intruder would need something to negate the protection spells of this house."

"But what could Doom have used to get in here?" Zatanna asked. "What could possibly be powerful enough to counterattack several of your spells?"

"I think Skeletor might have left us a clue," John said, walking over to where Doom had been magically transported. He crouched down onto his haunches, picking up something with his back towards his fellow mages. When he stood back up to face them, he held two things in his hands. In one, the Death Note he had dropped during his collision. In the other, a torn page from the book of death. "Doom was most likely to get in with this. And if one page was powerful enough to bypass all of Stephen's security, then this thing has to be even more powerful than we had originally thought. I think our problems have just been exacerbated, mates: not only is this a portable WMD, but now we know that Kira was able to contact Doom and to convince him to capture it. You need to get this thing back to the Bat ASAP, Zatanna. That book is one of the worst things I've ever had the displeasure of getting near, and if that Doom tosser is any indication, Kira might keep sending one mask after another until he gets the bleedin' thing.

Zatanna picked up Doom's mask. Though it didn't exactly hurt her to touch it, she still shuddered at the insidious energy running within and without it. "So then what do we do with this?" she asked.

Strange thought, then began to rummage through the pile of books that had once buried Wong. Selecting one, he opened it and began to quickly browse through a few pages. After a few moments, he closed it. John and Zatanna were not all that surprised to see that the book was dusty, worn, and written with intricate sigils.

"I may no longer practice medicine," he said at last, "but in my own way I'm still a doctor. And a true doctor never lets a good part go to waste. "

"What are you planning, boss?" Wong asked.

Strange paused, studying the mask in Zatanna's hand. "Hopefully, something that will turn the tide of this war," he said.

I hear voices in my head. Often, they're of the irritating as hell variety, such as _Dragoon, mow the lawn, _or _Dragoon, take out the trash, _or even _Dragoon, don't dig up the pipeline. _(Thankfully, I've learned to mostly ignore them). But then I also hear the voices of this fanfic's characters, both as I write and as I go back over the prose. Part of the joy behind writing, I think, is hearing your players come alive, something that can make an otherwise ordinary day seem a hell of a lot more interesting. So ust for the sake of fun, here's a listing of who I imagine to voice these amazing characters.

CASTING CALL:

BATMAN: Michael Conroy

LIGHT: Stephen Dorff (English)/Mamoru Miyano (Japanese)

NIGHTWING: Brandon Lee

MIKAMI: Kirk Thornton (English)/Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese)

JOKER: Mark Hamill

TWO-FACE: Denzel Washington (He's almost always playing the cool, suave dude. Let's see that combined with the ravaged rage of Face.)

GORDON: Gary Oldman (I can't help it. Oldman owned the Batman movies so much that he actually made people cheer for a cop)

Wow. Super original, I know. But it'd make for one hell of a movie.

Lastly, here's an awesome Batman cartoon I found and thought was too glorious not to share with my fine readers. Enter The Batman!

BATMAN OF SHANGHAI: watch?v=-Gbs67ApxL4


	7. Arkham Tape 01

CLASSIFIED

ARKHAM ASYLUM TAPE #01

SUBJECT: Light Yagami

(Original credit goes to Paul Dini, who wrote several entertaining and chilling interviews as a part of the Arkham Asylum video game. )

KAPOOR: This is Doctor Divya Kapoor. Today is the first day I speak with one of the asylum's newest inmates, a young man by the name of Light Yagami. Yagami is somewhat of an anomaly here in Arkham. By nearly all accounts, Yagami is an efficient, even proficient, individual. He's extremely intelligent, well educated, and displays exemplary social skills. Moreover, unlike many of the other inmates here, Yagami is an attractive man, and seemingly has no problems participating in and sustaining long-term relationships, either with friends or with partners. However, the police reports all indicate that this persona is largely a facade. From what intel has been gathered, courtesy of Commissioner Gordon and the Batman, Yagami was at one time the second L of the Japanese Kira Investigation Team, but for whatever reason, perhaps due to the death of the first L and/or Soichiro Yagami , he lost his mind and then murdered his fellow detectives, believing himself to truly be Kira. Our data indicates that Yagami is not Kira, as Yagami proved his innocence by volunteering for confinement, during which times the Kira murders continued. At this stage, I believe that the original L's insistence that Yagami was Kira caused him to embrace this false belief. Afterwards, for reasons that Yagami refuses to disclose and for reasons that the police do not know, Yagami and another delusional case, Teru Mikami, came to Gotham, committed a series of murders against low-level criminals, then directly confronted Batman. Batman overcame the two (big surprise), the police arrested them, and they have been committed here ever since. Today, I hope to confront Yagami over his identity crisis and the severity of his crimes, or at least in a gradual manner that doesn't push him away.

(There is the sound of a door opening, and we hear someone in shackles and chains enter the room along with two other figures)

GUARD 1: Here he is, Dr. Kapoor. You want we should stick around in case this one gets violent?

KAPOOR: I don't think that will be necessary, Mr. O'Neil. I think it would be best if I were to talk to this patient by myself.

GUARD 2: Are you sure, Dr. Kapoor? They say that this one is a slippery customer.

KAPOOR: Thank you, Mr. Miller, but I think I'll be doing just fine. This one doesn't possess any powers we should be concerned about, so I doubt any danger is imminent. You two can just stand outside the door for the time being.

(Door opens and guards leave)

KAPOOR: Hello, Light. How are you today?

LIGHT: Delighted. Thrilled. Peachy keen. Who wouldn't be enthralled with this enchanting place? Who couldn't regard this paradise with the most awed of sensibilities?

KAPOOR: ... I take it you're not doing well then.

LIGHT: I'm doing well enough, Dr. Kapoor. The fact that you, someone whose vocabulary extends to more than just the grunts of retarded swine, work here is of some comfort. I mean, have you ever tried discussing James Joyce with Croc? Jesus wept.

KAPOOR: Then you're not getting along well with the other residents?

LIGHT: Undoubtedly the understatement of the year. When I was first told that I was coming to this godforsaken hellhole, I was given the impression that this was a place to fear with no small measure of horror. Upon closer review, this would appear to be more of a pit of brain-dead imbeciles with no concept of culture outside of television and the day's menu. Thank God (heh) for Nygma. At least he can keep me on my toes. The rest of the scum are no better than the garbage I execute on a daily basis.

KAPOOR: You're referring to you're belief that you're Kira? No, Light, that simply isn't the truth. You came under suspicion, true, but you proved your innocence with your time spent in that cell.

LIGHT: Clever. The Bat uses my past to keep me locked up here as if I'm actually crazy. An act of containment, but a smart one nonetheless.

KAPOOR: I have to tell you, Light, that sounds pretty paranoid. Why should Batman lie to Arkham's staff? He works with the law, not against it.

LIGHT: Because the Koumori is afraid of me. Afraid of what I can achieve. He considers me the greatest threat to all of humanity, so naturally he'll lie his ass off to keep me here. This is an utter perversity of law: I should be in Black Gate, not this squalid sanitarium.

KAPOOR: Look, Light, I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is that the longer you perseverate with this delusion of yours, the longer you have to stay here and not with the general population. The more you work with me, the greater the chance you get transferred out of the psych ward.

LIGHT: Work with you... and what exactly does that entail, doctor? Do you expect me to spill my guts out to you? To tell you the grittiest details of the trash I slaughtered? Would make for a rather juicy report for the Gotham Journal of Psychology, wouldn't it?

KAPOOR: You're still acting paranoid, Light. You know as well as I that the judge ruled that your crimes wouldn't be made available to the public since he didn't want people to think that you're actually Kira.

LIGHT: THAT'S BECAUSE I AM KIRA!

(Silence)

LIGHT: I... I have to be Kira... I just... I have to...

KAPOOR: Light?

LIGHT: Doc, I... I had to do it, don't you see? I had to kill them. I had to be Kira.

KAPOOR: Why is that, Light?

LIGHT: L... (voice cracks) L got into my head. Told me I was someone I was sure I was not. And no one... no one had ever done that to me before, doctor. No one had ever made me feel so unsure of myself, so confused and so weak-

KAPOOR: But Light, L turned out to be wrong. It's all in our files. The reason that you're convinced you're Kira is probably because you respected L so much. Subconsciously, your guilt over murders you didn't even commit is causing you to think that you're someone you're not. But Light, as brilliant as I'm sure he was, L wasn't infallible. L wasn't God. And the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can accept the reality that you're Light Yagami and not Kira.

LIGHT: I... I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can... if I can start questioning reality again. Not after what I've been through. Not after what I've done. I need to be Kira, don't you see?

KAPOOR: No, Light, you don't need this delusion. The delusion needs you.

LIGHT: ... I'm scared, doc. I'm scared to trust again. Trusting L turned my world upside down. How do I know trusting you won't do the same?

KAPOOR: Light, I know it's difficult, but I want you to take a chance with me. If you don't, then you have no possibility of moving forward. If you do take a chance, then there's at least a chance that we can rehabilitate you. That we can cure you of Kira once and for all.

LIGHT: ... Doctor Kapoor, in that case, shouldn't I know the first name of the person I'm to trust?

KAPOOR: ... Light, Commissioner Gordon told all Arkham staff to only share our last names...

LIGHT: Doc... how can I trust you if you won't trust me?

KAPOOR: ...

LIGHT: Please.

KAPOOR: Divya. My name is Divya Kapoor.

LIGHT: Thank you... Divya.


	8. Chapter VII Shout at the Devil

**CHAPTER VII:**

**SHOUT AT THE DEVIL**

And the light shineth in darkness; and _the darkness comprehended it not_.

-John 1:5

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.  
>-The Buddha<p>

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little. Henry... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people.

- Daniel Plainview, _There Will Be Blood_

Note: For those wondering how someone as massively powerful as Doom could have endured agony just from Constantine's blood getting in his eyes, Chapter VI has been expanded to include an explanation. Doom might be one of the most hardcore villains in comic history (and he is), but no one is quite so sly as the patron Saint of the Bastards. Cheers!

Also: I won't lie: I'm an angry person, and I think that I actually need to finish this story in order to get my feelings about life in order. However, the most inspiring story of 2013 and the one that has made me cry like a baby would be Miles Scott aka Bat Kid saving all of Gotham/San Francisco. I know, we all like to joke that Batman is one of the most depressing, cynical, and gloomy of all super-heroes. But to think that someone like that could help act as a source of strength and inspiration for a little kid... God, that humbles me. And it gives me hope. Thank you, Miles. You will probably never read this and we will probably never meet, but you have proven to me that super-heroes are indeed real. Merry Christmas and God bless.

**BATCAVE**

"The Bat Wraith has been stolen," Batman repeated.

"That is, ah, that is correct," Iron Man said.

Bruce closed his eyes, concentrating hard enough not to lose himself to his anger. This looked bad, this looked very bad, this looked very really bad, but this was also not an insoluble dilemma. Bruce mentally repeated something he had heard Clark say once, something that Bruce doubted he would ever admit to admiring: "It's never as bad as it seems". Bruce repeated this over and over as he grappled with his slowly burning ire.

"How is that even possible, Tony?" Bruce asked evenly. "Your lab possesses some of the most advanced security known to man. How could anyone sneak in there past all that?"

"Well, I checked all the equipment, and it doesn't look like our perp blasted his way in here," Tony said. He sounded grim; Tony the party animal was nowhere to be seen. "Both the eye and fingerprint scanners were successfully bypassed, and the correct encryption keys were inputted. But as to who could have actually gotten into here, I have no clue. How 'bout you?"

"I know who did this," Batman said.

Tony paused. "You think it's him, don't you?" He finally said. "You think it's the new kid on the block."

"I know it is," Bruce said, beginning to clench his hands. "I just know it is."

"But if it is him, how could he have been active in the theft all the way from Arkham?" Nightwing asked.

"That's what I'd like to know," Tony said.

"Let me take a wild guess," Batman said. "The GPS chips were deactivated, weren't they? Which means that we can't find it."

"I've already tried about fourteen times to locate the prototype by using the chips," Tony said. "All six regular chips were deactivated and so were two of the ones that I went to great pains to hide. So even if it wasn't him who took our mecha, someone with at least an advanced knowledge of robotics, cybernetics, and electrical engineering must have had a hand in it. I know He-Who Must-Not-Be-Named is a genius, but I doubt that rocket science is his forte. So it's more likely that either someone knowledgeable in those areas helped him, or that he acted together with at least one other techie. Calculator? Doc Destiny? Ivo? Your guess is as good as mine."

"I can interrogate them if all need be," Batman said. "I seriously doubt that he would have obtained the aid of someone like Luthor or Ra's al Ghul for a job like this. No, he would have wanted someone quieter to help him, someone not in the limelight. So-"

"That's assuming he's responsible," Tony noted. "I know that this guy is one of the best students in the class-room, Bruce, but it already stretches my imagination to think that the modus operandi of Hannibal Lecter's intern has been a magic book all this time. Can you really see him using the Wraith to throw down with Gojira on top of all that?"

"You don't know him like I do," Batman said. His voice implied memories best left unsaid. "You don't know what he's capable of."

"Oh, well, in that case, I guess you won't mind if I get wasted before I start work," Tony said, blithely in spite of himself. "Care to join me? This scotch isn't going to drink itself, you know."

Batman stared at Tony wordlessly.

"Anyone ever tell you talk too much, Bruce?" Tony asked, unable to resist. Humor rarely worked on Bruce, but at this point he would recite all the George Carlin jokes he could remember to get something, to get anything out of him.

"Goodbye, Tony," Bruce said, putting his mask back on and turning away. "I'll contact you later with what info I can shake out of him."

"Wait, Bruce, there's something else too," Tony broke in just as Batman turned to leave.

Bruce stopped. "Yes?" he asked.

"Bruce... it... look, I know you prefer to keep to yourself," Tony said, choosing his words strategically. "But recently some of the guys have become worried about your, ah, lack of availability. I mean, in the beginning I got it. We've all got our Ahab sides, and the whale you've been chasing is a particularly nasty one. But Bruce... you've been going at this non-stop for months now. Just look at you: your skin is pale, your eyes are bloodshot, and it looks like you haven't taken a shower for days."

"Is there a point to all this, Tony?" Batman asked curtly. What did any of this have to do with the matter at hand?

"The point is that everyone is becoming worried about your mental state, Bruce," Tony said, seemingly unfazed. "Look, I respect your Lone Wolf thing, OK? I really do. There aren't many masks who can operate as independently of both Avengers and JLA as you do. But there comes a time when even the best of us could use a helping hand. And I think that time might be now, Bruce."

Bruce let it all sink in, holding his tongue. Eventually, he spoke: "What exactly do you have in mind?

Tony sighed. "Truthfully, there's not a hell of a lot that I can do," he said. "But even if there's no way I could have prevented this jack-ass from sneaking in here, it did happen on my watch, so I can at least try to come up with a few toys to counter-act the Wraith. Guess I'll be your Q for awhile, Bruce."

Bruce wanted to stay angry at Tony but found that he couldn't. If someone like him was able to orchestrate theft from a genius like Tony all the way from an asylum cell, then there was no reason for Batman to believe that his foe couldn't have done likewise to him. No, no one could have seen this coming. This was that demon's fault and that demon's fault alone.

_Well, if that's the case, you know the quickest way to end this monster_¸ the critic in him jeered. _Problem is, Bruce old boy, is that you simply lack the backbone to do what's necessary. No wonder he had no problem leaving you with one of his Death Notes: he must've known just from looking at you that deep down, you're just some pampered, spineless worm. Keeping one freak alive at the expense of the entire human race: Mom and Dad must be __so__ proud of you. _

"Shut up," Bruce muttered in a low voice.

"Do what now?" Tony asked, hoping that he hadn't heard what he thought he heard, more concerned than angry. The last thing he needed on top of this debacle was one of his most efficacious allies giving him the cold shoulder.

"Nothing," Bruce said, pinching the sides of his eyes. "It's just been a long day, Tony. Go on and develop some new tools for me like you planned. I'm going to see if I can pry the truth out of our mutual friend."

Batman headed to one of the cave's many platforms, this time heading for one of his personal favorites, the Batmobile 4.0. True, plenty of other vehicles including his cars, motorcycles, and even jets stood waiting in their respective spots, but this particular Batmobile, assembled from both Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and a Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1, possessed exactly what Batman felt he needed at the moment: incredible speed and exemplary stealth.*

Batman tried to control his impatience as much as he could but couldn't deny that he wasn't going to feel satisfied until he got his hands on the most recent nightmare of his life. In any event, none of the heavy, high-damage vehicles were needed now, or at least so far as he knew. And even if he was able to somehow improbably spring a full-fledged assault from Arkham this soon, Batman could always call in for backup later.

_First and foremost I need to grill him on the Wraith_ Batman thought to himself. _Keep it as vague as you can, but start taking privileges away if he refuses to cooperate. If he really does have his hands on it… the entire city could go up in flames. __Dammit__, what do you want?! Why have you deliberately given yourself the disadvantage of coming to my home-field!? You want perfect order and control above all else. So why the Wraith? Why something that could burn all of Gotham to the ground? Or is that how far you're willing to go to secure your autocracy?_

Perhaps it was the somehow even darker than usual look on Batman's face as he moved towards his car, but Nightwing felt like he needed to say something, to say anything at all to keep his old man from losing his cool. Batman seldom lost his temper, especially ever since he recently started re-emphasizing Zen, Daoism, and Hinduism in his thinking; surprisingly, Bruce was always more or less open-minded regarding religion and mysticism. But ever since Kira started his reign of tyranny, Batman seemed more interested in the stuff than ever. However, when Bruce did really, really lose his temper, it was like watching a tsunami rip its way across a country: brutal, quick, and unstoppable. Thankfully, such times were few, even rare for Batman: being trained in a Shaolin temple apparently had a way of teaching people impeccable self-control. Still, just about everyone in the Bat family knew that this kind of furious action was to be minimized as much as possible, if not for the sake of his physical self, then for the sake of his mental health. If you were skilled enough to enrage Bruce, you could expect fractured ribs, broken teeth, and/or (but probably "and") several concussions. But if Batman were to actually ever kill someone… the consequences would undoubtedly be devastating, to say the least. Dick wasn't sure what was worse: a murder convincing Bruce that it was the best way to solve the problem of crime, or a killing convincing Batman that he deserved one.

"Bruce!" Dick said.

Batman turned to the young man he secretly regarded as his oldest son. "Hmm?" he said.

Dick thought before speaking. "I won't tell you to take it easy on him," Dick said at last, "because God knows that's the last thing that he deserves. But be careful, alright? Yagami is a planner, one of the best we've come across in a while, and the last thing anyone wants is for you to walk into the dragon's cave all helter-skelter."

Batman fell silent, staring at Nightwing like anyone else he might come across the street, his eyes slanted into a characteristic glare and his mouth set into a straight line.

_Oh great, looks like I overstepped my boundaries again, _Dick thought. _Knowing Bruce, he'll keep as quiet as a clam in deep water._

Instead, after a few moments, Bruce's eyes softened just a tad. "Alright," he said. "I will."

Batman turned too fast to notice Nightwing's mouth open a little in astonishment. Before Dick could say anything else, Bruce had already leaped into the Batmobile and sped off, leaving behind only exhaust and fumes.

"I hope he knows what he's getting himself into," Dick sighed. "Oh, Hell, I don't know. What do you think, Ace?"

In response, Ace leaned down his head and began to clean himself.

"Great," Tony said.

* * *

><p><strong>ARKHAM ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE<strong>

"Where is it, Yagami?" Batman said.

Light looked up from his Go board placed upon a crate in the center of his cell. Dressed in his asylum garb and lying languidly against a steel folding chair, Light looked to be about as comfortable as a sloth hanging from a tree. Another chair sat on the other side of the board and crate, empty and yet strangely inviting. Light also sat smoking an old time pipe: the strange scene made him look like a thug playing at being a listless but attentive old man. Batman stood on the other side of the cell, staring at him from the bulletproof, plastic barrier.

"Hello, Koumori," Light said.

"Where is it, Yagami?" Batman repeated, teeth clenched. "Where's the Bat Wraith?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Batman," Light said, moving a game piece. He didn't seem particularly engaged in the conversation. "Have you lost something? You know, sometimes the things we lose end up right underneath our noses. 'Le préfet jamais une fois que pensée il probable, ou possible, que le ministre avait déposé la lettre immédiatement sous le nez du monde entier!' to quote our old friend Auguste C. Dupin!"

"You go ahead and keep playing innocent all you want, Yagami," Batman growled, pointing an accusatory finger at Light. "But I will find it, and I will put an end to whatever it is you're plotting. The sooner you come clean, the sooner I can add some perks to your current living situation. You think that books and Go are enough to keep you from losing your mind? One more month with Crane and Zsasz and you'll be begging me to transfer you to Black Gate. I suggest you consider that."

Batman turned to leave. For the rest of the night, Batman planned to have everything Light owned taken away from him while devising how best to extract the vital information from him in an interrogation. The wheels began to whirl in Batman's mind until...

"Have you ever considered that you and your friends are losing, Batman?" Light asked.

Batman stopped where he was, his back to Light. The question did not sound like hot air.

"I don't mean that as an insult," Light continued. " I mean that as an honest opinion."

Batman turned around. Light sat in his same spot, but now giving Batman his full attention.

"Come inside, and I'll tell you how," Light said. "I've got no tricks up my sleeves, and even if I did, you could easily pummel me within this small space."

Batman paused a moment more, weighing the issue in his head. Even if Yagami had something in his cell that could incapacitate him, Batman could always press the distress signal on his utility belt to override the asylum's communications system and alert the guards. The risk seemed worth taking: Batman couldn't imagine what he had to lose, and if he was lucky, he might have something to gain.

Batman waited one more moment, then walked to the door of the cell. Taking out a key card from his utility belt , he slid a key card through the door's electronic card slot, and then stepped in through the open door. As he entered, Batman was immediately struck by just how cold the cell was. It wasn't Victor Fries cold, but then it was definitely more than just a nip to the air. This was all the stranger then, considering how the hallway's temperature was lukewarm at best and how the AC units only turned on in the cells when it became hot enough, usually during blistering summer days. Light did not seem to be particularly concerned with the iciness of the room.

"Make yourself at home, Koumori," Light said. "Mi casa es su casa, I believe the saying goes. Which reminds me: Which language would you prefer to converse in? English? Japanese? French? Mandarin? Oh, just a head's up, my Russian is a little rusty."

"Let's just alternate between Japanese and English for the time being," Batman said, taking a seat. "No more games, Yagami. No more pretenses. What did you mean by what you said? How am I losing?"

"First thing's first," Light said, gesturing toward the board. "Would you care for a game of Go? It's rather tedious playing by myself even if I have memorized Ryuzaki's playing style. One of the few reasons I regret sending the heretic to Hell."

"I thought you were going to talk to me," Batman growled. "I didn't come here to play Go."

"We can do both at the same time," Light replied, putting the pieces back in their original order. "Besides, you can use this as an opportunity to study how I utilize strategy."

"A very generous offer," Batman said, 'Especially since you can use this to study me as well."

Light gave Batman an unimpressed look. "Then please allow me to clear the elephant from this room," he said. "You know as well as I do that we're both going to use whatever situation we can to study each other. Right now, you're looking for anything and everything you can use to get a leg up on me. As I am doing to you. As we both do to just about anybody significant who has entered our lives. But that is simply our nature, Koumori. We wouldn't be who we are today if it weren't for that."

Batman hesitated. He wanted to tell Yagami that their natures were nothing alike, that he was in fact nothing like Light, that Yagami was a pitiful sack of crap while Bruce at the very least made some lives better in an otherwise cruel and merciless city. But no, that was his pride speaking, when really logic told him that this "We're Not So Different" trash was used by just about all of his enemies who never shut the hell up. And Yagami was right: as much as Bruce disliked being near the scum-bucket, he did want to hear what Light had to say. He had in fact wanted to hear what Yagami had to say ever since this whole Kira atrocity started. A significant part of what Light would say would be lies and half-truths, but he could always filter through that later. What Batman wanted now was not just the info about the Wraith but also an explanation. An explanation as to someone like Light Yagami could have become a twisted monster like Kira.

Batman moved a white stone. "How did this happen, Yagami?" he asked.

"Kira?" Light asked.

Batman nodded.

Light rubbed his chin and looked away at the wall, apparently in concentration. It didn't look to Bruce like Light was trying to blow him off but seemed more like the sign of a build-up before the dam was empty.

"Everyone has become a criminal, Batman," Light eventually began. "All my life, I was taught to believe in human society. That the general direction of humanity was positive and progressive. That if I contributed, everything would turn out A-OK and I would be happy. Years of school, books, and following the rules later, and what did I have? No hope. No passion. No happiness. And what did mankind have? Global warming. Two world wars with a spectacular blockbuster of a sequel well on the way. Grown men and women more inclined to devising ways to wiping each other out than to forming alliances. And you and your little super-friends? What were you doing? You were putting a band-aid on a cancer, at best. That's why I stepped in, Koumori. Because unlike your alien BFF, I am a true Superman. Humans have proven that they are unfit at autonomy. They are the disease: Kira is the cure. The hominids have become complacent; they believe that they're virtuous, but they allow crimes at all levels to occur, either because they're too lazy to stop it or because they believe that rampant crime is what life is like."

Light placed a hand over his black stone, hesitated a moment, then placed his stone down in another spot. He continued: "Now, you know by now that I'm quite keen on strategy, like yourself. You probably know then that the Art of War teaches us to leap at opportunities when they present themselves to us. The Death Note was my opportunity. Me choosing not to use it would have been a wasted opportunity. So I weighed my options. One, I could have thrown away the book and allowed humanity to destroy itself and the world around it. Or two, I could have used the book to put the appropriate muzzle on the mad dog that we call homo-sapiens while simultaneously fulfilling their true potential. The correct choice was obvious to me. It is because of me that crime in all sectors has been dropping worldwide. It is because of me that people no longer live in extremes of opulence and poverty. And it is because of me that Earth is sustaining less damage than it has in decades. And all because I was the only one with the nerve and the fortitude to take on the gargantuan task of saving this once doomed species."

There was a beat. Batman stared at Yagami as if he had two things on his mind and was now determining which one to be of greater import.

"I suppose that's not tobacco you're smoking," Batman finally said.

Light smirked softly at this. "Now why would I want to go and endanger my health like that, Koumori? Especially when I have miles to before I sleep?"

The allusion to Frost unnerved Batman more than he thought it could. Early in his career, Batman had to bring down a madman who held an entire wedding cathedral hostage. That man, having been driven insane by the death of his wife and son, had rambled on in lines only from Byron.* That had been the very definition of tragedy. The immediate situation was closer to heresy.

"Where did you even get that?" Batman asked, brushing aside the comparison with some effort.

Light eyed Batman as if he were speaking to a small child. "People actually have to work in this sector of Hell, Koumori," he said. "They might get paid a few more bread crumbs than the average nut-house employee because of the abhorrent state of this hellhole, but with the economy being what it is, there aren't too many career options available for the sad saps. Really, what else is going to get them through the day?"

"So you bought it from some guards," Batman said. He exhaled from his nose, making it sound like a sigh. "The sad thing is that I'm not going to take it away from you because I'm afraid it would be like depriving a schizophrenic his anti-psychotics."

Light, still smirking, put his free hand into a gun-like posture and then "shot" it at Batman, the "weapon" flicking upwards after its release. Batman decided to hide his irritation at this smug, flippant move.

"Now that is a public ad I would pay to see," Light said.

"You're deluded and you're full of crap, Yagami," Batman said, moving his white stone. More justifications. Probably thousands of them if he were to let Yagami go on all night. Batman was hardly surprised but wished the conversation to continue anyway. "You're not doing any of this for them. You're doing it for you. You get off on killing people. Even if you killed off only criminal degenerates, you would have ultimately just been murdering your own kind. But you've also killed innocent people whose only crime was to stand in your way. And just look at you: even as I speak to you about murdering millions, you show no indication of remorse or regret. You've been playing God for so long that you actually believe that you are Him."

"Godhood is a right, Koumori, one that I have earned in spades" Light said, moving his black stone. "What, do you think I've ever actually believed in some benevolent, interventionist deity? No, if godhood is anything, it's a title and a position to keep the primates in line. You and your frat siblings have only been keeping the savages alive long enough that they can figure out new ways to kill each other off. That's why Kira is here. It's time for a true Superman, for a true _Übermensch-"_

"You're butchering Nietzsche's philosophy, Yagami," Batman interrupted, moving his stone. "You have been ever since you used the will-to-power argument to justify your murders."

"Ah, then you know that I'm quite the Nietzsche aficionado?" Light asked, moving his stone.

"How could I not?" Batman asked, thinking over his next move. In a few moments, he moved a stone. "It's been your design to get me to notice that about you all this time. You left behind quotes at the murder scenes. You left a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in your room where you knew I would find it."

"All so that you might catch a glimpse of the genius I plan to unleash upon this world," Light said, moving his stone. "I'll give Superman his due: he truly has risen to heights incomprehensible to the average mind. And because of that, he has given a great deal of hope and will to the multitudes. Oh, I suppose that could be construed as cruel because the vast majority of the herd will never be able to obtain his demi-god status. Still, I seriously doubt that was ever his intention. Just look at what the man wears: red, blue, and yellow, resulting in one of the most garish costumes in the entire pantheon. And I've seen pictures of Captain Boomerang's first costume, by the way. But the costume makes sense from his point of view. Unlike you, Superman wants to be seen: he wants his actions to be conspicuous so that all may believe that they possess the same potential for benevolence that he does. Sadly, what Superman most likely believes to be his greatest contribution to humanity is undoubtedly his worst: regurgitating that Jefferson nonsense that all men are created equal, who cherished liberty so much that he owned black slaves and helped remove natives from their land. So, wittingly or not, Superman, by his very name, has perverted one of Nietzsche's most significant theories."

"He's more of an Übermensch than you'll ever be, Yagami," Batman said, nearly hissing as he moved his white stone.

"'_No one lies so boldly_ as the man who is indignant'," Light quoted, placing his black stone in place. "Superman an _Übermensch_? Don't make me laugh. The alien's very existence is cruel irony: _Übermensch_ translates to Superman, but the Superman we all know is anything but that. The boy-scout is super moral; the _Übermensch_ transcends morality."

"Yet Kira, the embodiment of all 'good', battles the forces of evil," Batman said, ruminating on where he could place his stone next. "That's what you say anyway. So you haven't transcended the laws of morality, Yagami. If anything, you use them in order to justify your manipulations and murders."

"Don't get the wrong idea, Koumori," Light said while Batman placed his next stone on another square. "I'm not some blind devotee of Nietzsche, accepting and practicing his each and every word as if the otherwise phenomenal man were infallible. The greatest philosopher of the nineteenth century? Indubitably. The greatest thinker of all time? Probably. But for all of his insight, for all of his ingenuity, and for all of his genius, Nietzsche was still just a man, and not even a Superman at that. And men, as you are very well aware, are quite flawed. Nietzsche's flaws? In thinking that the Will To Power could best be expressed cosmically and not in anthropocentric scenarios. Because the fact of the matter, brutal as it may be, is that every being capable of sentience vies for power against everyone else. It's only natural: as '2001' so brilliantly staged it, our ancestors' first tool was probably used to bash someone's brains in. It's a cruel paradox, Koumori: the tribe tries to drown the individual with their demands of conformity while so many in the herd make their little plans as much as they are able, skulking about like petty mice, speaking only in the softest of whispers, terrified to show the world who they truly are."

"A mass murderer and would-be crusader deliberately misinterpreting the works of Nietzsche in order to further his own agenda," Batman said, moving his white stone. "Now where have I heard that one before?"

"Ah, yes, the obligatory Hitler comment," Light said, moving a black stone. "You know, I've seen your country's news programs. People left and right accuse each others of beings Nazis, as if they actually knew what it was like living underneath the rule of the Third Reich. They even draw Hitler mustaches on images of your own President. And considering that America only entered World War Two after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, I don't believe that your countrymen are entitled to use comparisons regarding old Adolph. Now, the French and the Russians, on the other hand-"

"I have no country," Batman retorted, moving another stone. "I have only my city, and maybe my species. But we are both aware that morality has little to do politics."

Light considered this, staring at his own stone. "I suppose you're right about that," he said, eventually pushing a stone of his. "But in any event, I was digressing. See, as Batman has no country but the world itself, so too does Kira own the entire planet. So I can assume that our current… 'disagreement' has nothing to do with what Uncle Sam did to Japan or what the Land of the Rising Sun did to the United States. Anyway, my point about Hitler. A failed artist? Yes. A pathetic neurotic? Yes. A monster? Oh my goodness gracious, yes. But, and this is with a capital 'B', Hitler was right about one thing, and that is this: that things are horribly, horribly wrong in this world. Hitler kept a tight grip on Germany, and that was about the one impressive thing that he ever managed to accomplish. But no, he couldn't leave it at just that, could he? The piss-ant had to go and blame an entire ethnicity for the fact that he never would have made it as a painter. Hence the Jewish Holocaust. That jack-ass! Nietzsche deplored all the Abrahamic religions, not just Judaism! And the Aryan race of Supermen? Complete and utter bull-crap! There never has been a race of supermen, not even with all the capes that we have today! The rarity of the Übermensch is what makes them so valuable and what makes people follow them in the first place! That moron! He made me, Bonaparte, Caesar, Khan, and the rest of us look bad! Like we were in the same league as him!"

"My heart gushes for you," Batman replied, moving his next stone. "But you're forgetting something, Yagami. Nietzsche thought that none of those men were _Übermensch_. In fact, Nietzsche believed that the Superman had yet to appear before or during his lifetime. Moreover, Supermen are creators, not destroyers. And _Übermensch _are aware of their flaws: in your mind, you have none."

"Three points", Light replied, moving his stone. "One, we must destroy if we are to create. Just like how I must destroy this corrupt, rotting dystopia if I am to create a just, virtuous utopia. As Friedrich put it himself, 'The lover wants to create because he despises. What does he know of love who has not had to despise precisely what he loved!' Two, just because Nietzsche was my mentor and the greatest philosopher of all time doesn't mean that the man wasn't flawed. No, like all great pupils, I intend to soar where Nietzsche only sprinted. That is simply the Will To Power, Koumori. Even when I stood enraptured by the utter brilliance of Nietzsche, I still continued to plan how I might improve upon the old man's philosophy. How my ideas might have more power than his. A necessary consequence of the Will To Power. Not even you are immune to this Will, Koumori. You have a persona to act out, after all: you're the big, dark, scary one, and so naturally you have to play out the part of a monster. But what about the others, Bats? What about the Lantern? And the Martian? And all the meta-humans and non-humans that can fly, summon lightning, or punch their way through steel? I know you, Koumori, I know you and I know your kind better than you want me to, so I know that it must be a continual struggle for you to be The Dark Knight amidst so many potentially challenging masks. But that's all in the past now. This charade of secrets and lies and knives in the dark… this all ends with me. This all ends with Kira. You and the rest of the 'Higher Men' have fulfilled your mission, Batman, and you in particular have fulfilled it spectacularly. You have prepared the way for the Übermensch, and now I'm finally here."

"Except that if you really idolize Nietzsche that much, then you have made a fatal flaw in your logic," Batman said, moving his stone. "You've forgotten that Nietzsche didn't believe in universal morality. He didn't believe that there was good or evil. Yet you yourself proclaim yourself to be the pinnacle of benevolence, meting out justice to the wicked."

"Once again, I am no servile member of the Church of Nietzsche," Light said, moving his stone. "For awhile I accepted his theory that 'good' in the sense of morality was merely a label that the weak and the pathetic used to dignify themselves while 'evil' was just a term that those same petty slaves used to curse their rich and powerful masters. Indeed, as I have never believed in a personal God, I found no qualms in thinking that there was no moral phenomena at all, but only moral interpretations of said phenomena, that the rich exploiting the poor was merely an impersonal fact of life, no more sinister than a tiger mauling a gazelle."

Light's eyes narrowed as Batman made his next maneuver, but this action was made not due to Batman's move but due to the thought that came into Light's head. "But somewhere along the line, some time after I received that blessed book, I noticed something disturbing. The poor man steals money from a cash register. The rich man steals money from the stock market. The poor man litters. The rich man creates massive oil spills. The poor man murders. The rich man profits from the very wars he and his ilk have instigated. I have finally learned what Nietzsche could never have foreseen: all of the castes break the law. The aristocrats, of whom I used to be a member, have become as decadent and corrupt as any common street thug. They, who are at the top of society's ladder, should be sustaining the existence of society and yet are complicit in gradually destroying it. In breaking the law. My law. The holy and infallible Law of Kira. Oh, I suppose that I do still believe that there's a distinction between good and evil versus good and bad, as Nietzsche once wrote. That what's good is what's efficacious and what's bad is what's worthless. But the non-existence of good and evil? No, now I do believe in it. It all comes down to order, you see. Those who break the law and create chaos consequently impinge Kira's perfect society. Therefore, those who sin against Kira are evil. But those that obey Kira's law, those that contribute to the maintenance of my glorious utopia… well, they are quite naturally good. So as you can see, Koumori, not only am I here to fulfill Nietzsche's prophecy of the Übermensch, I am also here to supersede one of the greatest men to have ever walked across this rotten carcass that we call human society."

Light took his stone into his hand, moved it over to an empty square, waited, then placed the stone down. "Moreover, I am well aware of my one flaw", he said. "It's the one that has prevented me from writing down your name the first chance I got. That flaw is mercy. Really, the smartest thing for me to do would have been to write your name down years ago when I first got the chance. Leaving you alive has already decreased my chances of victory. But that's OK. I can live with that. So long as I get what I want."

"And what is it that you want, Yagami?" Batman asked, trying to sound casual and not anxious as he moved a white stone in spite of his steadily rising consternation. Did the freak really know what his name was? At this point, it seemed like it would have taken some kind of miracle to prevent Yagami from discovering it.

Light had been reaching out for his black stone, but now he stopped. Light paused with his hand over his stone, his face blank and unreadable. Then he leaned back in his chair and gave Batman his complete and undivided attention.

"The Kryptonian," Light said. "The Amazon. The JLA. The Avengers. Each and every single mask, cape, mutant, demon, alien, and super-human. But what do I want most of all? You, Batman. I want you."

Batman stared blankly at Light for a few moments, not sure what to say. The possibility he dreaded more than anything else was beginning to develop flesh and bones.

"You're too intelligent to pull this all off just so that you could hit on me, Yagami," Batman eventually said, hoping that Yagami would believe that he wasn't really aware of what Kira wanted. "And the intel on you indicates that you're heterosexual. So if this isn't about sex, what is this about? What do you want with me and my friends?"

Light waited a second, then leaned forward with his fingers folded across one another. "I want you to understand something, Koumori", he said, placing his elbows on his ankles, pressing the hands against the nose, and covering his mouth. His eyes had little humor in them now. "I am Kira. I am God Almighty. But I have never once said that I am the only god. In a world of people who see through solid objects, outrun jets, and wield magical hammers, do you really think I would be so deluded as to consider myself the one and only Deity? No, there are other gods out there besides myself. But as you may have already well noted, there is no King of the Gods. And that is precisely the problem of the superhero world today. Oh, you all have veterans of the game that you look up to, but you have no true structure. No true organization. No true leadership. And that is precisely what I am willing to offer to you, Batman. That is what I am graciously willing to provide for you and your kin. In other words, Koumori, there is a clear and distinct reason that I haven't eliminated you yet. You, Koumori. I want you. I want Batman to work for Kira."

"...you want me." Batman said, enduring the tightening of his stomach. It looked as if the Fates had found another way in which to utterly screw him over again. "To work for you. Me. For you."

"Yes," Light answered.

Batman paused. "Where's the second Death Note, Yagami?" he said.

"I take it that means 'no'," Light said. He sounded perfectly calm.

"You should take it that there's no way in Hell I would ever accept your methods of mass murder, let alone help continue it," Batman said, as Light serenely moved his white stone. He tried to sound somewhat contemptuous, and he probably succeeded. However, in all honesty, another part of him, a part of him of considerable depth and weight, was completely focused on Light's revelation. All the signs had pointed to this, to this imagined scenario that had cost him sleep many a night. Kira's apparent lack of interest in killing any superhuman, good or evil. Light evading the mask community for years with no attempt made at any offense. The fact that Yagami didn't write down "Batman" or "Bruce Wayne" when he had a chance, even though it was now likely that the scum-bucket knew his name. It all added up to a potential World War, one that Light could actually win if he played his cards right. And 99.9% of the time, Yagami dealt a royal flush. For one of the few times in his life, Bruce actually wished that both his comrades and his friends were there with him to end this vampire's reign of blood once and for all. But no, no this had started with Batman, and it could only truly be finished by him alone.

"Or maybe you're just afraid to take a risk," Light replied. "I don't blame you, Koumori. Not even you are fearless, though you do pretend to be. The thought of a veritable utopia... it's an intimidating one , I'll admit. It's one that mankind has been trying to achieve since the days of Plato's Republic. And it's been something that, at best, only the most able of statesmen have been able to enact for only a limited time. But now we have it, don't you see? Now we finally have the means to make Paradise last forever. This is an opportunity that not even you can pass up. No more crime. No more murder." Light paused. "And no more children watching their parents die."

Batman hoped that a look of utter horror hadn't suddenly flashed over his face because he sure as Hell felt it, and he was also sure as Hell that Yagami would notice the change if the emotion weren't restrained enough. The likelihood of that Yagami knew about Batman and Bruce Wayne had just sky-rocketed to about ninety two percent, and if he really knew all that much, how much could he also know about his allies, friends, and family? Perhaps far, far too much. The slime was resourceful and clever enough to pull it all off. Batman had felt this black, coarse, ragged horror before on a number of occasions. The light leaving Mom and Dad's eyes as they lied on the gravel and the rain. The shining white knight of Gotham transformed into a monster of boundless hatred and all-encompassing rage. Jason's limp and battered body cradled in his arms. The revelation that his best friend since childhood was indeed a sociopathic murderer hellbent on ruining his life. The knowledge that he wouldn't be able to help Tim save his father's life.

The horror passed and was replaced by anger: Yagami was trying to use the memories of his parents against him. Batman would have liked to have thought that even this was too low for Yagami, but Batman knew Yagami far better than he would have liked.

Batman stared at Light coldly and without emotion for a few moments. "Except for you," he finally said. He moved a stone without taking his eyes off of Yagami.

Light curled his nose. "It had to happen," Light said. "Dad never would have lasted. He was too old, too stubborn. This may win the award for Tragedy of the Year, Koumori, but it's best for him and everyone else that he's gone. At least now he's somewhere where's there's no more pain."

"And what if he's not, Yagami?" Batman asked, as Light stiffly moved a stone. "Superman, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow have all come back to life. If the Death Note really means that there's more out there than we know like you say, then that could very well mean that your father is still out there, watching you." Batman waited before delivering his key line. "And disappointed in you."

Light again clenched his hands underneath the table, this time not out of excitement but out of a loss of his composure. "You want to talk about disappointment?!" Light snapped, pointing a slightly shaking finger at Batman. "Let's talk about how my father disappointed me. How he disappointed me with his futile efforts to save a species that preferred crime to law! How he disappointed me by lacking the nerve to collar and execute the worst of the animals once and for all! And how the whole damn world disappointed me with it's lies!"

Light paused, as if reconsidering, then moved his finger and hand over his hair with a chuckle. Batman was glad that Light moved his finger before it was snapped in two.

"Only a few people could ever get me to lose my temper like that," Light said, sounding amused. "First L. Then his two brats, especially when they worked together. Choosing you to become my disciple was truly one of the greatest decisions I've ever made."

"Except that you can never have me," Batman said without any hint of hyperbole. "You know that I would sooner die than ever accept your warped notions of law and justice. That goes for a vast majority of the mask population too. But why me anyway, Yagami? Why not go after Lantern, Flash, or any other super-human? Why chase around a detective with nothing to offer you except for maybe a few gadgets and a few martial arts moves?"

Light's arms had been resting on his thighs after his right hand had moved through his hair. Now he moved his hand to the right side of his eye, pressing in on the flesh. His face was largely expressionless, but this was almost certainly a deliberate stratagem on his part. If one studied him closely enough, one could see that Yagami was thinking things through while studying his adversary. Eventually, Light leaned forward a little, his face now somber, as if to emphasize the significance of his reply and the trust he was now placing in Batman's hands.

"Koumori, do you know what happened to me after I first used the Death Note?" Light eventually asked. "I hid in my room for days, terrified. I drank for the first time in my life. The alcohol numbed the terror, you see. Because for those few hellish days, there was a thought that played itself through my head like a broken record until I became sure that I was going to lose my mind. Do you know what that thought was? 'Batman is coming to get me. I broke the law, I killed a man, and now Batman is going to come and get me.' An illogical perseverance, of course. You could have had no idea that it was me who used the Death Note. Hell, I doubt you could have even known what a Death Note was. And yet, all this goes to show one thing, Koumori. That we are connected. That we are bonded. I may not believe in a personal creator God, but after all this, after everything we've both been through, I've come to believe in fate. Because it was fate that we should have met each other all those years ago. Because it was fate that we should become adversaries now. And because it was fate that I should finally, finally come to meet a true member of my family."

Batman hoped that he stared at Light blankly, but suspected that some disgust might have shown on his face. "You cannot be saying what I think you're saying," he finally said.

Light held out his arms wide with a self-assured smile, as if he were about to hug the colossus sitting across from him. "Oni-san," he said. "Big brother."

Batman felt sick in the center of his stomach, but continued speaking anyway. This time he took a little longer moving his white stone. "We're not family in any way, Yagami," Batman stated as bluntly as he could. "Not by blood, not by friendship, and not by any similarity."

Light moved his black piece. "We're two of the greatest Übermensch out there, Koumori," he said. "You and I have both built legacies that will affect mankind long after we both kick the bucket. We have both ignored the more superfluous regulations of our cultures and have come up with our own rules for living, our own morality for being. We have both prevented Apollo from manacling us with his left-brained excess of reason unlike so many of our uncreative constituents. We have both allowed Dionysus to rule alongside his prim and proper sibling and with the resulting bursts of imagination we both have been able to craft tributes to the summits of greatness: you, the best that man can achieve, and I, the veritable transformation of a man into a God."

"You had a family once ago, Yagami," Batman said, glowering while Light moved a stone. "A sister. A mother. And one of the best fathers a son could ever hope to have. You might be a genius, Yagami, but even extraordinary men make extraordinary mistakes, and you have erred greatly in tossing away the one thing that still kept you human."

Light didn't move for a few seconds, and he stared at Batman as if the latter had made some kind of obscene, tasteless joke. Finally, he leaned forward.

"My family?" Light asked, nearly incredulous. "My family? Let me tell a little something about my so-called family, Koumori. My mother is a spineless sheep with no initiative, doing only what society expects of her. My sister is a fatuous imbecile who allows her life to be dictated by the vapid tastes of her idiotic friends and by her love for stagnant pop music. And as for my father... for all of his strength, for all of his bravery, he was still ultimately fighting on the wrong side of the war. He didn't want to change the world: he wanted to keep it the way it was. A world where criminals possessed rights they never deserved to begin with! A world where thieves and murderers walked in and out of prison like a revolving door! A world where a select few were above the law as if they weren't a part of the herd themselves!"

"What your father did was to protect everyone he could to the best of his ability, not by authoritarian zeal like yourself, but by bending the law when the time called for it," Batman said, moving his stone. "The society that he tried to take care of was imperfect, but then it's a hell of a lot more preferable to this fascist dictatorship you've created."

"Call it what you like, Koumori," Light said, sounding unfazed as he moved his stone. "You call it fascism? I call it order. Order that my father failed to produce so abysmally. But your defense of my father doesn't negate anything that I said. My father was great for his... 'class', but I was always the superior son, destined to exceed him in every factor. So those three stooges? Nothing in common with them. Plenty in common with you though and with the rest of our ilk. And you know what? I love it. I love the fact that eventually your family and mine will merge into one. You, me, Nightwing, Teru, Robin. And, hey, if you ever stop long enough to get your ass with the program and accept Talia's advances, perhaps even Ra's and his League could be permitted to join us. Our goals are similar enough as it is."

Light paused. "Of course, out of that list, only you, I, and the Demon's Head himself could really be labelled as Supermen," he eventually said. "Everyone else more or less plays by the rules we three have devised." A thought came to Light, and he smiled with cocky self-satisfaction. "Still, Robin seems to be showing great potential in acting beyond both good and evil-"

"You talk about him like that again, and I'll sever all the tendons in your body," Batman hissed. A dangerous gleam formed itself in his eyes.

Light stared at Batman without expression for several moments, then sighed. "Koumori, you of all people should know this Nietzsche maxim," Light said, unperturbed as he moved a stone. "Because, while it may have permeated pop culture to the extent that now every inbred half-wit is aware of it, it is still indubitably true: 'What does not kill us makes us stronger'. This undoubtedly applies to both you and I. I have been locked up; I have been interrogated and investigated without mercy; I have been only inches away from being exposed as Kira. Hell, last time I was exposed as Kira! But I walked away every single time, every single time smarter, every single time stronger, and every single time better than before."

Light hesitated, weighing his next words cautiously. "And you: exactly how many times have you suffered only to come out all the better for it? How many times have you failed to save the day? How many times have you had to break off relationships to keep your precious identity a secret? I mean, just look at you! Look at how strong you are! You're so strong both mentally and physically that I'm really the one who could ever win against you! You spilled a lot of blood to get that kind of strength, and don't bother telling me otherwise. I don't need to know your past to tell that you must have been broken once before, either in body or in mind. Perhaps both. I wouldn't place that kind of recovery above you. So go on and do your worst to me. Break my legs. Shatter my jaw. Put me in traction. Because in the end you will never kill me. The only thing you can do is knock me around, and for every time I visit the medic I'll become an even more formidable foe for you. You want a stronger opponent? Go ahead, and be my guest. You'll only be delaying the inevitable and improving my odds of success all at once."

Batman considered all this. Brute force would most likely not solve this problem. In fact, it had been Nietzsche who had written that brute force was one of the weakest and most limited wills to power compared to, say, the will to power of ideas. And the power of ideas, of creation, of intellect and imagination would be precisely what was needed to shut Kira down. More to the point, what would cold-cocking Yagami really amount too? A few weeks in the medic quarters, two and a half tops? That would only delay the conclusion to this conflict, and there was no reason not to believe that added time could work to Yagami's advantage. Moreover, who was to say that an ass-kicking wouldn't figure into Yagami's plans? No, Yagami had won this hand, and the only sensible thing for Batman to do at this point would be to continue the conversation to the end, the sooner the better.

"Why haven't you killed off any of my enemies?" Batman asked as he moved a white stone. "Gotham is home to some of the world's most deranged criminals. And even if you weren't able to discover Joker's true name, you could have written down the name of all the rest, which are freely available to the public. So why is this asylum still filled with the most notorious of the freaks?"

Light hesitated, apparently focusing on his next board move. Eventually, he moved his eyes from the board up to Batman.

"Oh, what, you don't believe in redemption, Koumori?" Light asked, as normally as he could. "How… intriguing. You've only been able to give Catwoman, Two-Face, and Robin second chances. Now you're the only one allowed to issue repentance?"

"Funny how all the people I've given second chances to afterwards at least tried to do the right thing afterwards," Batman said. "You, on the other hand, are just stopping the likes of Penguin and Black Mask from committing more crime, not keeping them alive because you actually give a damn about them, but most likely because you might be able to use them against me later."

"I'm merely instructing them to bow down to the infallible authority of Kira as proof of their willingness to change," Light said, eventually moving his black stone. "Isn't that what this nut-house and that abhorrent prison is supposed to do and yet repeatedly fails at? Reforming their kind? Rehabilitating the animals? Curing the freaks? Besides, you've seen what's happened to the ones I've magnanimously spared: they've either quit criminal activity or are now in the sole business of importing the best wacky tobacky they can get their hands on. Yes sir, Gotham is a far more dangerous place now that I've tripled the rate of people who watch the Daily Show."

"You know as well as I do that… that Bruce Wayne was well on his way to convincing Governor Gibbons to introduce a new state-wide bill legalizing its sale," Batman said, thinking over his next move. "That's the kind of action that's really needed, Yagami. Patient, steady, precise action. Not drastic, arbitrary, violent action like you've been taking. And eventually, it's all going to blow up in your face. It always does for people like you."

"You keep telling yourself that, Bats," Light said, as Batman put his stone in place. "Meanwhile, I'll just be kicking it here, waiting for The Promised Day, maintaining my dignity while humanity continues to reject the inefficacious methods of you and your allies and continues to embrace the efficient means of Kira."

"'The Promised Day'?" Batman asked, giving the new term his full attention.

"Hmm?" Light asked, staring at the board, as if the term didn't carry much import.

"The Promised Day," Batman repeated, staring even more intently at Yagami. "What is that? What do you mean by that?"

This time Light slouched back in his chair, as if he didn't have a care in the world. He wore a complacent grin as he filled his pipe from a pouch that he took out from his pocket.

"Oh come now, my dear Koumori, do you really think I expected you to simply bow down to the almighty power that is Kira after I offered you my stewardship?" Light said. He lighted his pipe, and then blew out a great amount of smoke upwards, in a carefree and unconcerned manner. "No, by all accounts, you're a great man, and so naturally you're going to require a great deal of persuasion in order to convince you to join the right side. And, sooner rather than later, that Promised Day will come. The blessed Day in which you are presented with incontrovertible evidence that Kira is truly God Almighty and is truly needed to save humanity."

Light's eyes, previously surveying the ceiling with a languid air, now dropped back to Batman. The pupils sharpened, and Batman did not feel fear in being the object of those mercilessly keen eyes, but an increased sense of vulnerability nevertheless. There weren't many with the temerity to try to stare him down and analyze him at the same time.

"I won't tell you when that Day will be, Batman" Light continued. "But when that Day comes, you'll know. And finally, after everything is said and done, after the smoke settles, after the blades stop flashing and the guns stop firing and the rockets stop dropping, you will finally become what you were meant to be all this time: Kira's Dark Knight."

Batman's teeth clenched far harder than they normally did, but he did not notice the ache. He was far too concerned with whether or not Yagami was bluffing. The slippery little smooth-talker tricked people left and right by sprinkling his lies amongst his truths and his truths amongst his lies, and so now he was not completely certain that this Promised Day was genuine warning or some deceitful bravado. If everything that Batman learned from L's, Mello's, Matt's, and Near's report were true, it was that the sick puke had orchestrated a massive yet genius plot that made him lose his memories, clear his name, gain his memories back, kill L, and then gain total access to both of the existent Death Notes. This was clearly not something to ignore. Still, none of this was enough to obtain Batman's allegiance, and Batman knew that Yagami wouldn't have pulled all this off unless he was sincere about all this disciple business. However, if all this were the case, then Yagami must have also known that warnings, threats, and ostentatious displays of power wouldn't have been enough to convert the likes of the Bat. Something was missing from this equation, and Batman was simultaneously repulsed yet determined to wade through even more filth and slime to get his answer.

"You forgot to mention something," Batman said.

"What?" Light asked.

"Why would someone like me ever work for someone like you?" Batman asked.

"Other than world peace?" Light said.

"If I really wanted that to this extent, don't you think I would have acted like you long ago?" Batman replied.

This was true. The Koumori was dedicated, maybe even obsessed, with battling crime and fighting for justice. However, he was also a man who had lived with his ridiculous no-kill creed long enough to make removing it a significant chore. However, this was precisely the moment that Light had been waiting for. The anvil was as hot as it was going to get, and if Light didn't strike now then time –perhaps even precious time—would be lost to him. If the trump card didn't completely immobilize the Bat, it would at least clip his wings.

"The resurrection of your parents," Light said.

Batman sat frozen in his spot. At first he felt nothing: that was because he did not know what to feel. The breath left his body entirely. He did not know whether his mouth had opened or whether his eyes had widened, but at that particular moment he was oblivious to the strategy of gestures.

The void left Batman as he caught a hold on some loose strand of reason; raw, deep, molten rage began to quickly fill the black cavern. Would Yagami really make a bluff this enormous, a bluff that could likely get him torn apart ? No, that wasn't likely. He knew Yagami well enough to know that he really did want to control the entire cape community and the entire world along with it. More to the point, Yagami specifically wanted Batman at his side. Yes, with all that they had between them , Yagami would surely delight in the Dark Knight becoming the Dark Knight of Kira. And if Yagami couldn't possess Batman, then he would perceive it as a failure that would probably haunt him to the rest of his days.

"... you are well aware that I can start tossing you around in here for about four minutes before anyone comes to stop me," Batman said, practically gnashing his teeth.

"I don't blame you for not believing me, Koumori," Light said. his voice softer now, all pomp erased from his face. His eyes had lost any predatory glimmer that they had before; he looked at Batman with such compassion that Bruce might have actually believed it had he let his guard down or had he not be struggling with his to keep his rage in check. Whether or not he truly cared, he indubitably sounded and looked like it."But you're well aware that I'm too smart to start screwing around with you on this. Especially where I am, and especially that I lack proper defense. And you can't just shrug this one off either. You've seen too many things happen. The ghost of an alien god trying to destroy existence. Global operations run by a nearly immortal monomaniac. And now a book that can kill anyone I want just by writing in it.

"But this is the most important point of all," Light continued in the same steady, gentle tone. "The point is that you deserve it, Batman. You deserve to have your parents back. After all of the sacrifices, all of the loneliness, and all of the sacrifices, you, above all else, deserve to have that part of your life back. You deserve to be happy once more. And your mother and father… don't you think that they deserve to be alive? They were good people. They were great people, in fact. Your father, a wealthy doctor who treated rich and poor alike, but significantly reduced his fees for the latter. Your mother, a woman who could have spent her husband's fortune on fine living, instead spent time visiting sick children and volunteering at the soup kitchen. They're the exact kind of people who should be alive- honest, productive, and virtuous. And before I became Kira the world was run by your parent's polar opposites, by corrupt politicians and by decadent CEO's. I've mostly stopped all that; there are only a few rats left to bait and trap. But more importantly, I can finally fill that void within you, Batman. I can finally give you all that you've ever wanted since the moment you became alone. They're the ones that deserve to be alive in Kira's perfect world. It's a win-win, Koumori. Everyone gets what they want. I get the perfect warrior to defend my planet, and you get to finally be happy again for the first time in years."

Batman leaned in further. Inside, he was thunderstruck. If Yagami wasn't lying to him now, if he really had studied books of magick and was gaining new… powers as a result, then there was no telling just how much damage he could wreck. However, on the outside Batman did not let slip any of his anxiety. His eyes managed to slit even further. He squeezed his hands, clenched his teeth, and expanded his nostrils. All in all, Batman did not look amused.

"So there are no misunderstandings, I'm going to be crystal clear with you, Yagami," Batman said in a furious sense of monotone. "Believe me when I say that I would rather my parents be dead and buried and at eternal rest than alive in your fascist dystopia."

Light furrowed his brows. He did not look surprised, but he did not look pleased either, as if he had guessed that the Bat would rudely reject his most magnanimous offer.

"I suspected that you would say that," Light said stiffly yet evenly. "I realize that this is all a little much and maybe a little too soon, but not even you can ignore something with this kind of gravity. And I won't lie to you, Koumori. I don't yet possess the power to bring the dead back to life. All I can do now is purge the world of the criminal scum intent on ruining my new global order. But I'm getting there, Bats. Every day I'm getting closer and closer. It's the books, Batman. Even the most obscure and rare of texts have only hinted at the powers of resurrection, but the hints are all I need to guide me along the trail. There is more in Heaven and in Earth than in our deepest philosophy, Koumori, and you know as well as I do that the Lazarus Pit is proof of that. Sooner or later, I will have it. Sooner or later I will become God of both Life and Death."

"I don't care if you've learned to raise Christ from the grave," Batman snarled. "This is how it is, and this is how it's going to be. You won't kill me because then you'll lose a potential ally. But you loathe losing, Yagami, and because of that it's going to be your pride that will end up bringing you down. Because even if you do write down my name on this Promised Day of yours, someone will replace me. And if you kill them, then someone else will replace them too, and the cycle will continue ad naseum. You've done a stellar job of evading my community, but not even you can keep that up forever. You're a genius, Yagami, but you're a genius fighting an uphill battle. And all that you've been doing… all this death and all this scorn and all this hate… it's going to rebound on you, Yagami, and when it does it is going to hit you hard. What you put out into life is exactly what you get back, and someday you will learn the sad and pitiful truth that behind your disguise, behind your lies, and behind your mask, you amount to no more than the scum already in here: a freak."

Light gritted his teeth. This time the Koumori had gone too far. Family be damned: he had given the Bat enough leeway, and now the ingrate had the nerve to utter such abhorrent blasphemies. For this, blood needed to be spilled.

"Oh, I see what this is now," Light said coldly. "I should have seen this one coming. You refusing to join my Holy Crusade. Your insistence on returning to the old Gotham, back to all the murder and heroin and female slavery. Because that was yours, wasn't it? Gotham was your godless sewer of a city, and you could exert enough power to maintain a status quo adequate to your lax standards. Because the truth of the matter is that if your parents hadn't died, you never would have been able to have anything of your own. More to the point, you would have never been able to become Batman. So, really, Bruce, all this time you've actually been glad that Thomas and Martha were filled with lead-"

"DAMN YOU, YAGAMI!" Batman roared, smashing his fist through the go board and the table itself. "I saved you! I saved your life! And this is how you repay me?! BY BECOMING A MONSTER?!"

Light froze, staring downwards at the debris that had been a relatively thin table but also a relatively thick block of wood. As Light lowered his face out of Batman's vision, the room somehow seemed to grow even colder. Batman knew that it could not really be, that it was all just a result of his exhaustion combined with his imagination, but he began to see more of a Yagami's true appearance nevertheless: at this particular instance it was that Yagami's hair had transformed from merely brown to a far more infernal orange. Batman was not afraid, but he dreaded looking at Light's face anyway. Dreaded looking at the face of complete and utter evil.

Bruce's ominous expectations bore spoiled, rotten, maggot-writhing fruit. Light turned his head to look at Batman, and the Dark Knight could feel his stamina plummet.

Batman knew that he had been working hard, but now he knew that he had been working too hard for far too long. His vision was surely playing tricks on him. There was no way that he could be actually seeing what was really there. And yet he saw it anyway: Light Yagami with keen blood-red irises, his demeanor that of quietly demonic anger, a sense of bestial indignation reigned in with stoic discipline. Beauty and the Beast in one.

"What you did back then was for you and for you alone," Light said slowly, precisely, deliberately. "To make you look so big. To make the rest of us look so small. Well, no longer. Not for me. You and the rest of the glory boys have had your shot; now it's my turn. But that's OK. I don't hold the fact that you commit your heroics out of self-interest against you. If you're smart, then you live for yourself, and living for yourself is the best way to live for everyone else. I will not deny that I receive pleasure from acting as Kira, but neither will I deny that satisfaction ought to be the fruit of one's labors. I might love the flawed people of this planet enough that I'm willing to spend my life insuring their safety, but I'm also well aware that my colossal achievements make the majority of mankind look trivial by comparison. That is simply the nature of the beast. People like you and me, like Hawkman and Wonder Woman and Spider-Man… we naturally make the rest look like so much dust. And for that, some of the ungrateful ants try to persecute us, to call us freaks and monsters and murderers. Before, our kind condoned this horrendous ingratitude; as of now, I am ending it. It is time for humanity to learn its limitations."

"And I'm telling you all this to save your life, Koumori," Light continued, but now in a manner more akin to hissing. Resentment, impatience, and disgust bled into his cold voice. "You know as well as I that you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. Moreover, you are one of the few people alive fit to rule over the monkeys, and for that reason I have not written down your name. But as much as I want Batman to be on my team, I do not need Batman to be on my team. If somehow you fail to see the utter genius of my ways by the time of the Promised Day, I will write your name down and you will die. And if you still think that you have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning this fight, then you'd better consider the facts. You refuse to kill; I tenaciously eliminate anyone who hinders my perfect world. I know where the second Death Note is; you possess a copy but you won't use it against me under any circumstances. To put it simply, I have the high ground. So the sooner you pull your head out of your ass long enough to realize that you're fighting on the wrong side of this war to save mankind, the better.

Batman stared at this twisted young man, and Bruce could feel all the hatred in him vanish. Those humorless, burning eyes. That cold, disgusted sneer. The complete absence of any compassion, mercy, or love. Of all the people that Bruce thought this could happen to, Light Yagami had been on the bottom of the list.

Light relaxed his posture a little at seeing Batman's reaction. Not anger, no, not the piercing glare of fury that he had been expecting. Maybe it was all just a bluff, but… the Bat looked grieved. There was some animosity in that look, some sign of disappointment mixed with revulsion, but to Light it was readily apparent that the Bat felt this way more about the situation in question. Maybe even about himself. Either way, it was all quite… unexpected…

"What happened to the boy I used to know, Light?" Batman asked, his voice lowered.

Light's eyes softened. This man, for all of his self-righteous idealism, deserved at least the truth.

"He died," Light said, taking no delight in the deed. "He died a long time ago."

Batman sighed through his nose in reply, closing his eyes as if it were better not to stare at what was very likely one of the greatest mistakes he had ever made. The sigh was a long, extended breath that dripped with controlled tension and even better controlled despair. He sat still for a couple of moments, staring at the debris with an unusually dejected gaze. It still looked faintly angry, but it also looked tired. Tired and uncertain. As if the man behind the mask was not sure where his ire belonged or even if he was right to feel it.

Light noted this look almost mechanically. Having someone as incredible as The Batman brought down this low gave him no pleasure, but at the very least, a crack in the armor was beginning to widen. Once everything fell into place like Light knew they would, the old, outdated, archaic Batman would finally die. Only on the Promised Day would the Batman of Kira be born anew.

Eventually, Batman stood up, albeit silently. Turning around without a word, he walked over to the cell's door with regular, deliberate footsteps. Light watched, equally silent.

_Only a matter of time now _Light thought dispassionately, as if reading off a list of facts. _Only a matter of time._

Batman pulled out his key card and swiped it through the door's slot. The door opened with a faint hiss.

Batman stopped where he was, not doing anything but standing. Light, unable to see Batman's face, could not make out what this meant. In truth, Batman's white demon glare was now staring nowhere and everywhere at once, searching for any answers he could find on the outside while also stumbling for answers on the inside. He could only discover one as he searched his heart. It was faint and it was unclear, but it was the one. For the moment, it was all he had, all that might be able to stop Kira. And if it didn't…

… then Batman never stood a chance against Kira to begin with.

"This isn't over," Batman said, his voice ringing like brass iron, grating like brick against brick.

Then Batman walked out of the door, locked it behind him, and walked off down the hall.

A few moments passed. Light picked himself up out of his chair, looked at the destroyed table and board, and then shrugged. Only one way out of tens of thousands ways to keep himself busy was stricken down. There was still much to be done, much to accomplish if the Promised Day were to conquer. Still, the next phase of his master-plan would occur in either the next few hours or the next few hours or the next few days, so he could relax for the moment.

Light picked up a book from his table, inspected it, and then lied down on his bed. It was time to learn from pain once again.

"I hope he wasn't upset that we were tied," Light said.

* * *

><p><strong>LATER<strong>

"Give us that book, new fish," said a grinding, ragged voice outside the window.

Light looked up from his book, not surprised in the least to see one of Arkham's most feared madmen standing at his cell's window. That snarl. Those accusing eyes. The face of angel; the face of a demon. Exactly the freak that Light had wanted to meet.

_Correct, per usual _Light thought, restraining a smirk and retaining his poker face. _I knew you would eventually show up. A __maniac__ like you simply can't control his aggression all that well._

"Hello, Two-Face," Light said.

"The book, fish!" Two-Face barked in reply.

"What happened to yours?" Light asked, not at all acting as if he were tip-toeing around several bear-traps.

"Are you going to put that book through the door slot or not?!" Face snapped. His right eye throbbed with glistening menace. "We may not be able to get to you in there now, but sooner or later they'll let you out of this cell, and that's when we'll find you. Gut you. Flay you!"

"You know that big Asian guy who usually hangs out with me?" Light asked. "The one over two hundred pounds? Who lifts weights whenever he can?"

Two-Face thought. "… yeah…" he answered.

"You might be able to shank me if I let down my guard," Light said, sounding hardly excited in spite of the pounding of his heart. It was all finally coming together. "But it's a safe bet that Mikami will shove a broom stick down your throat right afterward. You know upset emotional a big softie like Teru can get."

Harvey looked irritated; Face looked absolutely livid. "Is that a threat, fish?" he hissed with a shaky sense of constrained fury.

"It is only a mere fact," Light said. He picked himself up off his bed, walked to the window, and stood straight across from Two-Face, staring at him right in his eyes. He held his book downwards in his right hand. "Don't touch me, and I won't sic my brutally insane bodyguard on you. Not that I want to. Not that you'll want to either. Because I've got something that you want, Two-Face. Two things, in fact. And neither of them are in my hand."

Face thought. The pretty-boy was seriously beginning to aggravate him, but then he had heard that this one was smart. Smart enough to give him something even better than a book, maybe. Had better be, if the punk didn't want to find himself stabbed with a sharpened toothbrush.

"What are they?" Two-Face asked.

"Cash," Light said. "And lots of it. You've overheard it from the guards at least, haven't you? That I used to be a detective? That I used to work alongside L in finding Kira?"

"… something like that." Face acknowledged. The old golden boy side of him was decidedly impressed by this level of achievement; the more current homicidal lunatic inside of him knew that he was going to drown this little turd in the toilet if he didn't go somewhere with this.

Light did a remarkable job of not laughing. Just as he had predicted, the moron doctors had only told security that Light had once worked alongside L, not that he had actually been L. The less that everyone knew the true story of Light, the better. At least, that's what the Koumori had been thinking. And what Light had been anticipating all this time.

"Your deal with the Guan Yu Family went sour, didn't it?" Light asked. "I read about that one. Thankfully, if you venture out with me, you'll be able to make up for all those benjamins you've lost. Moreover, you probably already know that not only am I a detective, but that I am the greatest mind on Earth, superior even to L. It doesn't matter to me whether you believe that last part or not, by the way. What matters to me is that you acknowledge that I'm far too brilliant to screw around with someone like you, especially when I have nothing to gain from it. That leads me to the second thing I can give you if you agree to work with me, something that will occur as a result our mutual endeavors and that you've been wanting for a very long time now. Someone who's failed to save Gotham the way you could have. Someone who's failed to save you."

Two-Face stared at Light with less anger and with more inquisitiveness. The punk was probably one of the better looking loonies in the nut house, but... his beauty was more like a disguise. A disguise that he wore very well, but not perfectly. Face had tortured, shot, and stabbed more people than Harvey Dent ever imagined he could, and so he knew just how nasty life could get, especially when you were willing to get your hands dirty in order to do what no one else would or could. Perhaps that's why he thought he could see something, faint, inconspicuous, and very well hidden, behind Yagami's eyes. It was something that told Face that this boy, however arrogant, might actually be able to deliver on his promises. But what...?

_Fire _Two Face thought, unusually calm. _There's fire in your eyes, Yagami. Fire that only freaks like us can have. How the hell did a puny little book-worm like you get that?_

"... say it," Two Face eventually said.

Light's lopsided grin became even wider and smugger as he dropped the bomb: "The complete and utter destruction of Batman."

Two Face drew on as much of Dent's cool logic as he could while he pondered this over. Plenty of people had tried to bring down the Bat, and none of them had ever managed to do it. Not Joker. Not Ra's al Ghul. Not even Hush, even after he bought the services of all the freaks and had Ivy control Superman's mind. For now, until Yagami could prove that he had the chops, Face thought he would do well to learn more about the operation and to play everything by ear. If he needed to, he could eviscerate Yagami after earning enough cash.

"How?" Face asked.

"How come you don't have a book?" Light asked again.

Two-Face gritted his teeth. The little bastard sure as hell had better deliver if he was going to flex his ego like this.

"… they took away the book we checked out," Face finally said. "Heart of Darkness. LoVED Apocalypse Now. Wanted to read the book. But they took it, THOSE ARROGANT IMBECILES, they took it away from us! Took what was rightfully ours! Said that the book was too "DARK" for us. Doctor suggested that we read 'Twilight'. We put five staples into the moron's forehead before they pulled us off."

"Ah, so that explains it," Light said, looking at the catwalk over the opposite set of cells. Not far from a small outpost, a guard stood, holding a sniper rifle against his chest, watching Face's every move with blank, hostile eyes. "I gotta give it to you, Harv, you're one of the few of us that gets more than just batons and tazers."

"The name is Two-Face, you smug little scum-bucket!" Face snapped. "You said that you would get us money. You said that you could destroy the Bat. And you said that the two were connected. Start talking now, new fish, or your next time outside of your cell will be your last!"

Light paused. Weirdly enough, it seemed that the sick-bag was hesitating much less out of fear and much more out of calmly thinking what his next action would be. The steady, unfeeling, flickering eyes gave no indication as to what he was thinking or feeling. His face could have been carved out of granite, handsome as it was.

It was shortly after those observations had been made that Light curled his lip. Soon the curled lip became a satisfied smirk. Eventually it transformed into one last final entity: a knowing, confident, and utterly blood-thirsty grin. Those once dead eyes had been resurrected, were now acting as beacons of penetratingly acute and brilliantly malicious energy.

Two-Face did not feel fear as much as he did consternation at this scene. Face was an excellent judge of character, not only due to Dent's past as an erudite lawyer but also to living with some of the world's most violent freaks for over a decade now. In fighting ruthless gangsters as a "normal" man, and in fighting the berserk and savage as a "freak", Face had learned to read people well. That look of hidden sorrow on The Bat whenever they were near. That look of unadulterated, pure joy when The Joker found out that Face had become one of "them". That self-assured and even cocky smirk of Maroni's that Dent stupidly shrugged off before having half of his face melted off. But all that pain had a point. All of that heartache, disappointment, and agony had achieved something. It had made him both smarter and stronger, smart enough to see life for the maddeningly absurd tragedy that it truly was, and strong enough to throw down with some of its worst demons. All of that death and destruction allowed him to see people at their worst, to see them as they truly were. Yagami had worn his mask quite well for the first part of the conversation, but throughout all of it Two-Face had known that something was off, that the outside of this snot-nosed punk somehow didn't match his inside, that unfortunately there was far more to this little sick-bag than just a subtle sense of smug superiority.

And now here it was. Yagami's true face. The face of monstrous pride. The face of a natural born killer. The face of a Devil in disguise.

Face furrowed his brows, both normal and crispy alike. Face had fallen too far into his own ring of fire to start fearing anyone else, no matter who they might be, but an uncomfortable thought nevertheless occurred to him: this seemingly innocuous stain could hurt him, if he really set out to do it. This was not a man to simply toss around. This was a potential demon to keep his eyes on. A fortuitous ally or a relentless foe. Maybe neither. Maybe both. But this time Two-Face was sure that the coin would not tell him.

"So, Harv," Light Yagami grinned, placing his book's front cover against the dividing wall. "You ever read 'Fight Club'?"

* * *

><p>CHRIST ON HIS THRONE THIS CHAPTER TOOK FOREVER! I really hope that quality is more significant than quantity (and also that this chapter possesses an ass-load of the former), but I don't know. Hopefully, when I've fully moved from my old house to my new place, I can devote more time to my writing. The next chapter is going to be much shorter, so you can expect that to be posted sooner rather than later. Thanks for keeping up with the chapters!<p>

And now for something completely different:

Sometime in the 1950's, a science fiction writer named Theodore Sturgeon was asked by an interviewer whether or not ninety percent of SF wasn't crap (this was back when people actually thought that sci-fi was trash; nowadays, you can expect such a remark to have a mob of cos-players throwing forties at your windows). Sturgeon's answer? That ninety percent of everything is crap. This is known as Sturgeon's Revelation, and, based on my experience, it certainly does apply to most things: books, films, video games, and especially both anime and manga. Unfortunately, most anime and manga is crap. Magical princess stuff makes me think that maybe the Devil exists, and I always end up hating the guys in harem comedies (You really expect me to believe a guy wouldn't try to hit all that as much as he could? ["I never struck her!" Oh, God, you really need to see that Venture Brothers episode if you haven't already]). That being said, the great animes and mangas that I've had the privilege to experience have been what keep me coming back for more. Just in case anyone here who reads The Light In The Abyss doesn't know too much about Japanese animation and comics, here's a quick list of my personal favorites to get you started. I don't claim to be an authority (merely a fan) but for anyone who likes this fan-fic, this may prove to be up your alley. Also, if you'd like, I'd be interested in hearing what you guys are into and/or what you would think I would like. Merry Christmas!

DEATH NOTE (Duh)

ELFEN LIED

COWBOY BEBOP

AFRO SAMURAI

SAMURAI CHAMPLOO

AZUMANGA DAIOH (I know, it's a girl show, but it was just so adorable and genuinely funny. Plus, Osaka is gangsta.)

TOKYO GODFATHERS

ANIMATRIX

AKIRA

GHOST IN THE SHELL (This and Akira are absolutely essential)

KILL BILL (The O-Ren Ishii sequence, anyway. Mad props to Tarantino.)

ANYTHING BY STUDIO GHIBLI (Especially My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke. Its especially encouraging that Totoro's street cred is still recognized after so many years)

PARANOIA AGENT

MILLENIUM ACTRESS

DRAGON BALL AND DRAGON BALL Z (Forget Goku versus Superman: those two boy-scouts would sooner have a picnic than fight. Now, let's talk Batman versus Vegeta!)

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST

BERSERK (The anime was OK, but the manga is Dark Fantasy with a capital D)

FINAL FANTASY VII ADVENT CHILDREN

HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD

PARASYTE

UZUMAKI/SPIRAL (Also a great live action film)

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION

SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN

VAMPIRE HUNTER D BLOODLUST

HELLSING

SAMURAI X (I could never get into Ruroni Kenshin, unfortunately. Simply too cute for me: now Samurai X, on the other hand, was one of the most beautiful and violent tragedies I've ever had the luck to see)

NINJA SCROLL

LONE WOLF AND CUB

*These were the two bad-ass cars that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eduardo Noriega drove in The Last Stand. TLS was a supremely fun popcorn movie, but I would argue that Kim Jee-woon's American debut is not his best work (please understand that that's like me saying that Ride The Lightning isn't Metallica's best album due to Master of Puppets). Of Jee-woon's films, I've seen A Tale of Two Sisters (an unnerving fairy tale ghost story), The Good, The Bad, and The Weird (an excellent and unique take on the western), and I Saw The Devil (A great movie but really dark. It's no coincidence that Jee-woon directed TLS afterwards). I combined the Camaro and the Corvette because I know jack crap about cars other than when they look and act awesome (It's one thing to drive a car off the top of a skyscraper and into the building below in order to pursue your adversary; it's another thing entirely to remember to release the emergency brake when you drive). If this story ever turned into a movie, Jee-woon would be at the top of the list for potential directors.

*In the story "Uneasy Allies" which I read in a paperback version of the _Batman: Turning Points _limited series. Those stories about Gordon and Batman were awesome sauce.


	9. Arkham Tape 02

(WARNING: MANY, MANY WORDS AND LARGE PARAGRAPHS AHEAD. IF YOU'RE LIKE ME, YOU'RE GOING TO WANT TO MAKE THE FONT AS LARGE AS YOU CAN.)

CLASSIFIED

TAPED SESSION

ARKHAM ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE

TAPE #002

PATIENT: TERU MIKAMI

DOCTOR: FRANCISCO RIVERA

RIVERA: This is Doctor Francisco Rivera of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The date and time is Wednesday the 16th, 3:30 PM. Today I am to further my treatment of Teru Mikami, although I doubt I'll have much success with said patient. You know of how a prestigious, reclusive attorney came to be here in Arkham, and you know its every bit as bizarre as his psychosis. Both Gordon and Batman claim that recent Arkham resident Light Yagami was the last L, and the successor of the late Lawson Lawliet. (Incidentally, L's true identity is not at all that shocking, considering that although L was one of the greatest minds on the planet, no one knew him outside of his work. Also, nothing is quite shocking compared to the fact of Yagami and Mikami, two success stories of the upper echelon of society, becoming serial killers. Also, I always liked the idea of Batman and L being one and the same.) Anyway, L mistakenly thought that Yagami was Kira, and Yagami's mind, though incredibly strong, was placed under considerable strain, most likely the beginning of Yagami's insanity and his irrational delusion that he was Kira. Kira murders Lawliet, Yagami becomes the new L, he eventually snaps under the strain of trying to capture Kira while continuing to prove that he wasn't the enemy, he becomes convinced that he is Kira, and he convinces Mikami to help him murder both his allies and those that believe L's incorrect claim that Yagami was Kira. Then he begins a second serial killing spree in Gotham alongside Mikami while plotting against Batman. This leads me to Mikami. If the uninitiated were to look at Mikami, they would not see a pathological killer. A photo from the near past would show a stoic but attractive young man. Tell the person looking at that photo that Mikami was a successful lawyer as well, and the chances of people believing that Mikami is dangerous in any way would plummet. But according to the data given to me by Nightwing, Mikami only recently succumbed to insanity as a consequence of the intensity of his Kira related delusions. The fact of his obsession with labor of any form, especially with what he regards as Kira's Holy War, has actually increased during these past years and must have facilitated his recent mental breakdown. In that case, it must have been easier for Yagami to convince Mikami to join his Crusade: Yagami is every bit as deluded and pathological as Mikami, but Yagami is also far more grounded, better able to socialize, and much more manipulative. Yagami is by all accounts the intellectual superior (But then Yagami's been able to evade the Bat for around a year; that's some kind of record, I think) but Mikami is still no slouch, so it would have taken Yagami considerable effort to crack Mikami's sanity to the point where Mikami believed that Yagami was actually God in the Flesh. After whatever brainwashing Yagami performed on Mikami, they quickly murdered Yagami's friends and enemies and then made their way to Gotham.

(A noise is heard, like the clearing of a throat. Sound of something being lifted up, and then a sound like a slight slurp before something solid clinks on the table.)

RIVERA: Still, after looking over this new information, specifically the several incidents that occurred to his classmates and the so-called Jerusalem Incident, I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the number of coincidences and loose ends. I have a few more minutes before the patient arrives, so I'd like to use this time to state my concerns for the record. I'd also like to note that if any of the following proves to be true, then Mikami must have gone to extraordinary lengths in order to hide his history while pretending to be an ordinary lawyer.

(Sound of papers and photographs being shuffled)

RIVERA: One classmate, Takashi Kurosawa, a bully, fell in front of a bullet train. A brick was found at the scene of the accident with Kurosawa's blood on it, found in such a position that it became likely that someone had thrown the brick at the back of Kurosawa's head, thus sending him forward off the platform and onto the tracks. However, no fingerprints were ever found on the rock, and no witness ever saw an alleged assailant, so the matter was dropped. Also, just about every kid in Kurosawa's class had motive to kill him, but apparently no one wanted to believe that young children could be responsible for cold-blooded murder. Another classmate, Yoshihiro Watanabe, unsurprisingly enough, a real _bastardo_, died in flames after his house burned down due to an electrical fire. The entire family, a mother, a father, and a younger brother perished as well. Police said it looked like the fuse box was tampered with, but that there wasn't enough hard evidence to warrant a full-fledged investigation, so they wrote it off as a freak accident.

(Sound of a weary sigh)

RIVERA: If this particular murder is interesting in any way, then it's interesting the same way Se7en was. One child, Satoshi Kobayashi, a particularly sadistic bully, was found in his room, his head caved in as if some one had bludgeoned him to death. Furiously too, judging from all the streaks of blood in the room. The murder weapon, found in the locker of a classmate named Hideaki Hirano, was a baseball bat drenched with Kobayashi's blood although little Hideaki has never stopped insisting that he wasn't responsible for the murder. This was about fifteen to eighteen years ago, when Mikami wasn't even ten. Furthermore, it strikes me as far too much of a coincidence that not only did Kobayashi pick on Mikami, but that Hirano did nothing to stop Mikami from getting his ass handed to him even after Teru stood up for him. This leads me to the the death of Mikami's mother, which came later. I can't support this hypothesis with any hard data yet, but the brakes on her car suddenly gave out without any warning beforehand? The style isn't exactly dissimilar from Mikami's current m.o., and it wouldn't be that great a stretch of the imagination to think that Mikami shared no compassion for a mother who, according to reports, told Mikami to stop challenging his school's antagonists.

RIVERA: Regarding the rest of the data... well, if Mikami really was responsible for all those murders, then the seeds of insanity were probably sown during the middle of the first decade of his life. Granted, the high school and college years seem fairly uneventful. Mikami eventually stopped sticking up for others and bullies eventually stopped picking on Mikami after he started taking karate and kendo classes. More interesting, I think is that Mikami worked full tilt during his high school and college years, working his hands to the bone in order to become as powerful and intelligent as he possibly could. In roughly eight years, Mikami usually received grades of A's and scores in the nineties, and this was while he spent time with clubs for chess, boxing, debating, shogi, and even mythology. That kind of work ethic sounds utterly obsessive at face value, but teachers and students agreed that he seemed to be in perfect control of himself at all times, even more so than most of his peers and elders. I realize how utterly contrary that is to his current behavior of enraged irrationality, but then Mikami is even more unbalanced than when he was younger. However, those same people have also described Mikami as "emotionless, distant, aloof" and even "cold". Like now, Mikami is an attractive man, and a number of women asked him out during his school years. (Side note: Nothing has come of it, but I can't say that I feel at ease knowing that Mikami has been socializing with Pamela Isley as of late. Remember to supervise more diligently.). However, Mikami almost always told these women that he was too busy to spend time with them. No one who was asked these questions by Arkham staff or by the Bat or by the allies of the Bat could ever recall seeing Mikami out in public with a friend or a girlfriend. Outside of cooperating with his clubs' teammates, Mikami did not interact with any of them outside the clubs.

RIVERA: However, the data I've received contains far more concrete evidence regarding the patient's horribly damaged psyche. Apparently, choosing to graduate from the school of hard knocks made Mikami something of a soldier, but a soldier without a war. This was why Mikami chose to join the Israeli Defense Forces using forged identifications. Considering how obsessed he was with strengthening his body and his mind during his high school and his college years, its really not all that shocking that Mikami wanted to obtain the skill that comes from constant and abundant moments of nerve-wracking tension. The kind of that soldiers receive keeping watch over a mixed population, to put it lightly. Objectively, the kind that result in many a battle and many a death. Too many, unfortunately. True, the one motive listed was murky and cryptic desire to, eh, "impose order with law". Also, Mikami specifically requested to be stationed in Jerusalem though he gave no specific answer as to why. Moreover, among the evidence I have, there is nothing that suggested that Mikami had any kind of personal interest in Israel or with the state's conflict with Palestinians. Politics apparently meant nothing to Mikami. Video footage of his debate club matches shows him rebuking a number of corrupt politicians across the world, whether right wing, center, or left wing. Interestingly enough, Mikami even suggested the possibility of some kind of pattern to all the corporate and political crimes committed across the World, going so far as to imply the existence of a shadow government above the law. Now, I know that the golden rule is that he with the gold make the rules, but this seems to me further evidence of Mikami's rigidly dogmatic paranoia*. Anyway, why Israel in particular? Now its all mostly talk between leaders on both sides and a displeased grunt at worst. But back before Mikami served with the IDF, back before Kira, people were far more violent. I should know: I've lived through South African Apartheid, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Balkans, Jonestown, and all the coups against the Marxist republics in South America. _Dios_, I'm old. But all that chaos was before Kira came along and demanded Worldwide Order. And now everything is... well, I'll leave that for whoever listens to this to chew on. Anyway, Mikami's family shows no link with any Palestinian or Israeli citizen. His family ancestry is largely native Japanese, with only a few foreign and Asian family members here and there. So why would Mikami choose Israel and Jerusalem? There's no clear-cut answer to this, but at least we do know that Mikami trained under the IDF, whose generals seemed intrigued with Mikami's potential. Looks like they were right on their hunch... to an extent. To the extent that Mikami mastered virtually everything that they taught him. To the extent that Mikami was obedient, trustworthy, and seemingly indifferent to the threat of immediate death. However, not to the extent that Mikami eventually snapped and rampaged throughout Jerusalem with rocket launchers, bombs, and tanks, resulting in about eighteen city blocks being destroyed as well as dozens dead, Palestinian and Israeli alike. Men. Women. Soldiers. Civilians. Children.

RIVERA: Considering all the destruction Mikami wrought I can't say that I'm surprised that the Top Brass failed to inform the public that a well respected soldier had suddenly gone off like The End of Days. A foreign citizen becoming an Israeli soldier only to lose his mind and then destroy everything in sight? The media would have eaten it up, and certain high people in certain high offices would have ended up looking inept. Still, the military documents within the data indicate that, incredibly enough, despite soldiers on both sides firing at him while he rampaged, not only did no one manage to hit him because of his "extraordinary speed and agility", but afterward Mikami simply disappeared after his attack. Witnesses who were later coerced into silence by several governments originally said that they saw Mikami leap out of a tank and then walk into a Synagogue a few minutes before it exploded from within, presumably because Mikami set off explosives of some kind. Yes, these are all extraordinary claims. But I've been handed the extraordinary evidence to back those claims up, and Nightwing has assured me that these files were gathered with the most painstaking diligence by Oracle. Gracias a Dios the state passed that law allowing all evidence gathered by masks to be used in investigations. The Joker attempting to detonate a bomb in a mall on Christmas Eve was a high price to pay for that*, but at least now we have a better chance at collaring the freaks before they get to cause too much damage.

(Sigh is heard)

RIVERA: I know I shouldn't use that kind of crude language, being a doctor and all, but I also don't think that I should be begrudged the chance to release some steam, especially after Dr. Kapoor and I had to diffuse a potential riot after someone convinced the inmates at Cell Block C that they were all poisoned and the antidote was hidden in James Gordon's bloodstream*. Only Yagami, right? Only if Yagami was capable of convincing the patients that they were dying (which I think for him would have been child's play), then shouldn't he have been able to detect just how utterly ruthless and lethal the Commissioner's son is? A simple glance at recent papers would have clearly shown that James is a brilliant serial killer who regards his ilk as the next stage in human evolution. A sort of perverse, topsy- turvy Übermensch, you might say. That would explain why we found three dead patients in his cell after the guards managed to restrain the rest, one with his face smashed against the cell's steel door, one drowned in the toilet, and one with a slit throat found near shards of a broken sink. And James? We found him calmly reading a blood-splattered copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm certain that Yagami was behind this, but unfortunately without any absolute evidence there's no way that we can fairly punish him, especially considering just how calm and collected he seemed when we confronted him in the rec room, playing go with Dent of all people. I would have stuck around longer in order to secretly eavesdrop on their conversation, except that Mikami was meditating a only a few feet away and that I had to phone the relatives of the deceased.

(A really tired sigh now)

RIVERA: Only two more years until retirement, Cisco. Then you can stay home with your wife and son and help put him through college. Ugh, the things we do for love. Or in Mikami's case, because of love. I believe it to be too early to ask Mikami about her, and I strongly recommend that she only be spoken of in order to prevent the patient from falling into too deep of a delusion. However, the consequences for even mentioning her name could still be dire. Its bad enough that Mikami believes that he's Kira's personal disciple: if you study the patterns found in his seemingly meaningless rants, it becomes apparent that Mikami believes that he is literally the biblical Angel of Death. While that's obviously not the case, I would argue that Mikami's keen intelligence and intimidating stature could fool someone into thinking he's, eh, "other-worldly". But even bearing all that in mind, how Mikami survived an explosion of that magnitude in Jerusalem is beyond me. Also beyond me is how Mikami was able to erase his fake identity, return to Japan, and then begin a seemingly normal life as an attorney. But Mikami, despite his madness, is still a genius, so its not out of the question that he could have had his past in Israel nullified and hidden. I know that this all sounds about as unlikely as Yagami actually being Kira and using a so-called Magic Book in order to execute his victims, but thankfully Nightwing has assured me that this information is valid and was obtained with painstaking diligence.

RIVERA: Unfortunately, I believe that its going to take much more than diligence in order to successfully treat Mikami. Yagami may be just as deluded as Mikami, but the former is far more grounded, methodical, and manipulative than the latter. For as long as Mikami has been here, he's been irascible, destructive and utterly unpredictable, and just about all of our treatments have failed to affect him. The painting therapy? He painted the other inmates burning in a Lake of Fire. The puppet therapy? He started screaming that Miss Polly Prissy Pants was in fact the Whore of Babylon. And the confession with Father Mignola in the Chapel? Not only do we now have three significantly injured guards, but now the smell of blood will never come off the Virgin statue! Gracias Christo Padre Mignola decided not to press charges against the asylum. Thankfully, it seems that Mikami pulled his punches with Mignola because, despite his religious fanaticism, he seems to admire priests of just about all religions. And with any luck, Padre Mignola will be able to feel his legs in three months, give or take.

RIVERA: However, even though my repertoire is dwindling because Mikami is unable to control his emotions for long and because he wreaks havoc both with cause and without like a wild card, I still have a few tricks left up my sleeve. Today I've decided go go a bit old school and try Rorschach inkblots and word association on Mikami today. Old fashioned, yes, but they tend to work on a vast majority of my patients. Not everything Freud said was crap, as much as Dr. Kapoor would care to believe otherwise. Except for maybe penis envy.*

(Sound of something like a buzzer and then some sort of steel and wire device sliding open. Then, sounds of footsteps that gradually become louder and louder.)

RIVERA: Right on time. (Lower voice) Que Dios me ayude...

(Sound of a door opening and then the sound of multiple footsteps that walk through said door. One of the new figures sounds as if he's dragging something like iron chains while he's walking.)

GUARD 1: You know the drill, Mikami. You even look at the doc funny, and we'll pepper spray you until your eyes ooze out of their sockets.

GUARD 2: Don't test us, kid. You might be as big as a skyscraper now, but none of that will matter much if we get to pummel you until you're quadriplegic. And after everything that you did to Father Mignola, the director isn't exactly adverse to you getting brain damage.

RIVERA: I am well aware that Teru here as put us all under a great deal of stress, gentlemen, but I would prefer it if you didn't threaten him so explicitly. Not only does he never react to threats unless they're against Yagami, but we need to start teaching Teru that violence and rage are not appropriate answers to life's problems.

GUARD 3: Sorry, Doc, but you know how this one puts us all on edge. Threats don't work. Fire-hoses don't work. Hell, not even electro-shock works!

GUARD 4: And the doctor said it would be another week until I can eat solid food again!

RIVERA: I know how destructive Teru can be, gentlemen. I still have this black eye, in case you haven't noticed. However, we can still use Yagami to punish Mikami, if need be. You understand, Teru? If you're good, I'll talk with the Board of Supervisors about Light getting to use his iPod. But if you try anything like with Mignola, and we'll take Light's video games away. You don't want that, do you?

(Silence)

RIVERA: I'll take that as a yes. Guards, I'd like you to stay here, if you don't mind. I'm sorry, Teru, but until you can keep your temper under control, I have no other recourse but to have you heavily monitored.

(Silence)

RIVERA: Would you care for a joint? Normally, this would be illegal as Hell, but thanks to Bruce Wayne's pull, certain... "tempestuous" patients are allowed to indulge, if they promise to behave.

MIKAMI: … I'll need a light.

(Sound of a lighter is heard. Then one audible inhalation, followed by an equally audible exhalation)

MIKAMI: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man."

RIVERA: Well, if pot can calm someone down even with your erratic disposition , I suppose divine qualities could be feasible. But now to get back to the matter at hand: today I was thinking that we could try some Rorschach tests so that I might better understand how your mind functions. You just tell me the first thing you see when I hold up one of these cards.

(Sound of a card being grabbed and then held up)

RIVERA: Now what do you see?

MIKAMI: God.

(Sound of another card being grabbed and then held up)

RIVERA: And now?

MIKAMI: God.

(Sound of yet another card being grabbed and then held up)

RIVERA: And this?

MIKAMI: God.

RIVERA: Teru... do all these cards remind you of God?

MIKAMI: Yes.

RIVERA: Why?

MIKAMI: Because God is everywhere and anywhere all at once. He may have assumed a mortal form and chosen to grace unworthy Tartarus with his glorious presence, but this does not negate his Infinitude.

RIVERA: Well, Teru, as convincing as that sounds, I have the same affinity for the Criterion Collection that you do, and I too saw The Ruling Class. Problem is, you're no Christ. You're many things, but Prince of Peace is not one of them.

MIKAMI: Oh? What am I then?

RIVERA (mutter): El Anticristo, tal vez...

MIKAMI: What was that? My Spanish isn't quite what it used to be.

RIVERA: I said that you're very ill, Teru. So mentally ill that you've convinced yourself that Light Yagami is both God and Kira, all of which is a delusion.

(Sound of inhalation, exhalation)

MIKAMI: God told me that you would say that. That the Bat has poisoned you and everyone else in this Den of Sin with the Bat's heinous blasphemy. Lies to prevent all of mankind from entering Eden once more. Rest assured, if I weren't weighed down by these shackles, I'd fly off this table and choke the life out of your for your venomous sacrilege.

RIVERA: Teru, I've warned you before: threats will only result in the staff depriving Light of his privileges.

(Silence)

RIVERA: What do you see now? And no more God business.

(Pause)

MIKAMI: A dog.

(Sound of card changing)

MIKAMI: A house.

(Sound of card changing)

MIKAMI: A horse.

RIVERA: Teru... I've been a psychologist for over twenty years. Most of those years have been spent here, dealing with patients who don't want to be here and who want to get out as quickly as they can. So I can tell when a person is lying to me. All you're doing is telling me what I want to hear. If you think that that's going to get you out of Arkham sooner, then I'm afraid that you're sadly mistaken.

MIKAMI: The reason I'm lying to you is because this is a waste of both of our times. You may not be aware of the letter of what I see, but you are most certainly aware of the spirit.

(Rivera sighs)

RIVERA: I suppose I do. But I still want to learn more about your condition so that I can treat it, Teru. But since you're not responding well to the Rorschach tests, let's try some word association instead.

MIKAMI: Your attempts at either psychoanalysis or analytical psychology will result in only abysmal failure, sinner.

RIVERA: Maybe so, but I think we should try it anyway. Now tell me the first word that comes to mind when I say a particular word. Here goes: Law.

MIKAMI: Order.

RIVERA: Crime.

MIKAMI: Impiety.

RIVERA: War.

MIKAMI: Holy.

RIVERA: Mother.

MIKAMI: Two.

RIVERA: … father.

MIKAMI: Two.

RIVERA: …

MIKAMI: …

RIVERA: … OK, people.

MIKAMI: Herd.

RIVERA: Hate.

MIKAMI: Necessary.

RIVERA: Love.

(Silence)

RIVERA: Love.

MIKAMI (Quietly): Agony.

RIVERA: … Teru, why do you think you think of agony when you-

MIKAMI: You again. What do you want now, Reaper?

RIVERA: … Teru, what are you looking-

MIKAMI: Doctor, if you do not mind, I will act out this farce of misapplied science as soon as I have conversing with the Shingami.

(Pause)

MIKAMI: So then both have just started His Glorious Crusade? Magnificent. His Lordship will be most pleased. I cannot say that I approve of the Babylonian, but His Grace is beyond all reproach. Thankfully, the Earth Goddess seems trustworthy, if not sympathetic.

(Silence)

MIKAMI: I do not care if the apples here are "teh suck" or whatever inane phrase you have found on the internet while trying to find videos of kittens on acid. You do your work, Ryuk, and you will get to see the Greatest Deluge of them all when Kira drowns the Damned in a Sea of Blood-

RIVERA: Teru, who is Vanessa Williams?

(Silence)

MIKAMI (whisper): … what did you just say?

RIVERA: Teru, I'm sorry. I real am. I know I must be digging up some old wounds, but I need to know-

MIKAMI: Who told you about this!? Was it the Bat!? Was it one of his detestable knights!? Or how about that WRETCHED DEMON SPAWN OF MEPHISTOPHELES WHO EVEN NOW MOCKS ME WITH HIS HERETICAL LEERING!

RIVERA: Teru, please-

MIKAMI: IT WAS YOU! IT WAS ALL OF YOU! ALL HAVE SINNED! ALL HAVE FALLEN SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD! ALL HAVE KILLED VANESSA! KILLED THE ONLY BEAUTIFUL PERSON IN ALL OF GEHENNA! IN ALL OF THIS GODDAMN WORLD! YYYAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!

(Sound of a chair knocked over and of a scuffle)

RIVERA: Guards! Guards! Que se vaya de mí!

(Scuffle, sound of static. Tape ends)

SO... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

I know, right? Ugh, this story is getting really complicated (Not as complicated as explaining how Geoff Johns turned Alan Moore's depiction of Swamp Thing on its head which is ironic because Moore's depiction of Swamp Thing was itself an act of turning the original character on its head, but still... complicated). After going through some of the chapters (Wow, I really did screw Near over, didn't I? I must have been grumpy that day...), I've come up with a list of questions that will be answered as the story progresses, some of it especially for The Promised Day.

1. Who is Vanessa Williams and how is she connected to Teru losing his mind in Israel? (Not the real-life super model, whom I only recently found out about, but still, DAMN : ) )

2. What exactly is the Bat Wraith? (We know that its a mecha, but tell me you can't see the difference between Unit 01 and Metal Gear Rex.)

3. Why did Light give Batman time to consider joining Kira when he just told Two-Face that together they were going to destroy the Bat?

4. What's going to happen on the Promised Day?

5. Who broke into Tony Stark's lab?

6. Why hasn't Light killed Batman's rogues?

7. Why did Light give Doom a piece of the Death Note, considering that Doom is a genius and could possibly destroy Light?

8. Where is the second Death Note (the one that Light owns) hidden?

9. Who was Slade talking to on the phone? Apparently, he/she was named "Diamond-Head" who had some sort of say in paying Deathstroke, if not in hiring him. This raises the question, "Why was Deathstroke hired to kill Two-Face?" Moreover, why was Diamond-Head afraid that Batman and Kira were on his/her trail? Note that Diamond-Head used the word "we" regarding Slade's financial compensation.

10. What is the past history between Light and Batman? What has been revealed thus far is that Batman saved Light's life years ago. Still, Batman saves plenty of people, so why should his relationship with Light be so much more significant? Hmm...

11. What changes are Batman going through? "I feel like I'm about to wake up?" What the Hell does that mean?! (I've tried to leave clues here and there, but I think the answer to this question might elude many [if "many" actually read this story] because I don't think its ever been pulled off in a super-hero story. OK, here's a hint: Batman is not the dream of an ancient alien civilization. [What a twist!])

NOTE: I do not intend this story to give any political comment of the current conflict in Israel or on the nation itself. The Light In The Abyss is a fan-fiction based off of super hero mythology and genre literature, and thus if there are any political inclinations, they have to be subtle and in the service of the spiritual transcendence of the myth and the story. (There's a great quote by Tolkien about how genre literature is hindered by allegories, so I deliberately attempt to excise any and all lecturing in any genre story I write. Yes, some of my beliefs might shimmer through the narration, but I think the core beliefs will have to do far more with mythology and philosophy than something like politics, the latter of which was probably responsible for driving Hunter S. Thompson looney tunes. In any event, Hercules, Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker would probably have been a hell of a lot more annoying if they pontificated about the invisible hand of the free market or the dictatorship of the proletariat or anything like that.) (If it makes any difference, I would personally prefer the conflict to be settled peacefully with both sides satisfied with the results. But how often does that happen, right? ¬_¬) So why mention the conflict at all in this story? I can't tell you now because that would spoil the surprise, but there are some things I can note. One, Mikami is horribly insane, and this seems to have something to do with his involvement in the conflict. (Anyone else remember that great Fullmetal Alchemist subplot about how the Ishbalan War destroyed many lives, both that of the transgressors and the victims? I don't think we really get that enough in stories, whether it be an anime, a novel, or any other format you can name) (Also, thank you everyone who's reviewed this story and didn't get upset over Mikami mentioning in the first chapter that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a "morally dubious issue". What I would pay to hear Sarah Silverman do a bit on this conflict stuff ^_^;) Two... um, the "War" between Batman and Light is really more of a feud but for the sake of drama and also because things are probably going to get a lot more chaotic as they go along, I've decided to call it a "War". And because warfare is involved, I will most likely end up giving a few of my thoughts about war, although I'll do my best not to make it didactic. Not quite incidentally, I learned about the difference between wars, feuds, and duels via a wonderful book called Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace by Douglas P. Fry, which, among other things, repudiated the widespread belief that wars are inevitable and that mankind is naturally violent by studying smaller and less violent societies. I don't recall it sugar-coating how brutal humans can be, but I do recall it making me feel more optimistic about mankind's future. (Not exactly inconsistent with the lofty standards that superhero myths think individuals can live up to...)

UGH, MORE POLITICAL STUFF: I might as well take the time to briefly state my opinion on Light being denied habeas corpus which is that, in real life, I wouldn't approve of it. However, in real life, we don't have notebooks that can kill people or detectives who dress up like giant bats or psychopathic vampires (unless you count Rupert Murdoch, I guess). Still, I pretty much always agree with Benjamin Franklin's statement that "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety". Franklin couldn't know the political situation of today, but I can't help but remember that pre-Batman Bruce was incensed after Henri Ducard shot an international criminal instead of giving him over to the World Court. (I was also pretty disgusted after Tony Stark and the U.S. government denied habeas corpus to the superheroes who refused to register during Marvel's Civil War. And also after they started recruiting super-villains. And also after they made a brainless Thor clone who malfunctioned and then began to murder. Thank God for Robert Downey and Matt Fraction). Nerd rambling aside, I pretty much got the idea of Light having no habeas corpus from the film Red State, a film that gave me hope that Kevin Smith might actually be able to shrug off past fiascos like The Evil That Men Do (at least we Batman fans got Onomatopoeia...).

THE GOSEPL ACCORDING TO RINGO CHAPTER 4 VERSE 20: And yea it came to pass one evening that after maybe three but definitely not eight White Russians (probably) that the Vampire Hunter Dragoon confided in his fellow demon slayer brethren/roommates that Will Arnett's Gob of Arrested Development was his Jesus Christ And verily did Arrested Development finally get a fourth season on Netflix. But then, the sun shone, the Lion lay by the Lamb, and the Seraphim of Heaven sang a glorious chorus as Gob reenacted the Passion of the Christ the way it should have been, with Jesus dancing to Europe's "The Final Countdown". The Prophecy of Dragoon had come true! And thus the Vampire Hunter Dragoon transcended the wretched realm of incorporeality! No mere Vampire Hunter is Dragoon now! Now is He The Vampire Hunter... and also Prophet Dragoon! (Its hard to fit that all into one concise term: work with me here). And verily did people begin to find The Dark Knight's, um, "Darkness" to be funny, and lo was Arnett chosen to voice the Batman in the Lego movie and blow everyone away, even those who were disappointed that Lego Joker never used his Lego knife to slash open someone's Lego mouth! But yea did the miracle come to pass that a family film was great and not superficial entertainment designed for a generation of epidemically low attention spans! Now can I get a witness!

ON NIETZSCHE: Where did I get the idea of making Philosophy God Friedrich Nietzsche a significant part of LIA as well as Light's favorite thinker? Oddly enough, I remember Light reading Beyond Good and Evil in the first live action Death Note movie, but I think I might have gotten the idea before even then. (My memory regarding my life tends to be kind of sketchy; however, my mind is completely proficient when it comes to remembering the name of the actor who played Leon in The Professional or at imagining how awesome it would have been had Bruce Lee ever used a lightsaber. Eh, remembering that the kitchen is dirty isn't all that fun anyway.) I'm guessing what it was was that I got into Death Note and Nietzsche at around the same time, and both injected LSD into my mind's eye, so naturally I thought of them as some of my most significant interests. Eventually I got the idea that there should be a Batman/Death Note crossover, but then I realized that Batman also had some strongly "Nietzschian" themes in his stories, so I decided to combine them all. Why study Nietzsche, you ask? The short answer is that he was one of the most unique and brilliant thinkers of the nineteenth century and that he advocated living life as best as you could even while being fully aware that life does and will continue to bring you pain. The Optimistic Pessimist, you might say, and pretty similar to Batman, who fights his never-ending war against crime well aware that he will be hurt by it again and again yet still not regretting his choice to do so. Ironically, I disagree with Nietzsche on a number of things (his toleration of rich criminals, his misogyny, his apparent dismissal of independent Christians, Muslims, and Jews throughout history [please prove me wrong on that last charge]), but I still find him to be one of the most fascinating philosophers of all time. If you're new to Nietzsche, then I highly recommend you read Action Philosophers by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, essentially a thick book filled with comics that introduce the Gods of Philosophy with razor-sharp wit (My favorite comic was about the Jean-Jacques Rousseau sitcom, "Oh, No, Rousseau!" XD) Other than doing the bare minimum for an adequate understanding of Nietzsche (namely, YouTube, Wikipedia, and quotes [which was, for me anyway, incredibly interesting]), I've read Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, and I'm still working through Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In my opinion, Nietzsche was a flawed genius, but sometimes its the flaws of a person that makes them fascinating. As Nietzsche once put it himself, "It _says nothing against_ the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms".

*The line is from They Live and was said by Keith David, whom not enough people know was Spawn on that kick-ass HBO show. It was pretty much a documentary about how the rich control the general populace with consumerism and television except (SPOILERS!) that Roddy Piper played a ripped, homeless laborer who finds sunglasses that reveal that the yuppies controlling everything are actually alien freaks who have already conquered the world. Other than the slight use of creative liberty, it was pretty much dead-on.

*From Gotham Central Volume 2: Jokers and Madmen, which, in my mind, contains one of the most chilling depictions of the Joker anywhere. Not even the Grinch would try to ruin Christmas this way...

*SPOILERS FOR "BLACK MIRROR" by SCOTT SNYDER (But really, screw it, James Gordon is going to appear again later in this story): In a comic book universe filled with such big baddies like Anti-Monitor, Darkseid, and Lex Luthor, it's telling that one of the few to make me clench my gut in tension is James Gordon, Commissioner Gordon's monster son. He looks like me, he looks like you, he looks like any other skinny, bespectacled young man you might see crossing the street, and that's exactly what he wants. Even without Bruce Wayne behind the mask (Dick Grayson fills in for Bruce after Batman is shot by Darkseid's Omega Beams and then forced to live several different bat related lives in the past, including a bat caveman, a bat pirate, and a bat cowboy. It was an interesting year.), Black Mirror still offered one of the most suspenseful and horrific crime stories I've ever read in comics. Read it now. (Remember when people used to actually think Batman was just for kids? [When was this, the time before Jesus?])

*This was an actual theory expounded by Sigmund Freud and probably one of the funniest things I've ever read about. I find that Freud, although a highly original thinker, willingly allowed his philosophy to be adulterated by his pride and by his inability to question his view points. Also, Jung totally schooled him. Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh, boy!


End file.
